by George Packard

After the dustup with Trinity Church over Duarte Park in Manhattan and my arrest I thought it was a good idea to put the past aside and gather some Episcopalians for coffee one block north of Zuccotti Park. Before arriving I spent a half hour staring at that infamous space with its barricades set aside and chained together, made irrelevant by the court order favoring Occupy Wall Street. Still, there was an ominous and newly-erected watch tower glowering down on the far corner. It bristled with TV cameras. The tower, a collapsible assembly hoisted up and down for better police vantage, was tactically sensible, but given the strident tone of police behavior it gave the look of Damascus. As our meeting awaited, I shuddered, thinking, “Would the Church cope or collude with this kind of future?”

Seven of us assembled at a corner table in the restaurant. As an after-thought, I invited the bishop-elect of the Diocese of New York, Andy Dietsche. We probably should have had two separate meetings. Andy, bright and earnest, had a lot to say. Since half of the clergy were from New York there was an understandable deference given to him. He told us that the Diocesan Convention had passed by a large majority a resolution supporting OWS and civil disobedience yet he was sure that diocesan clergy were unanimously opposed to the Duarte action and the subsequent arrests. Considering four arrestees were present around the table I wondered what the effect of that news was supposed to have. So I asked him. He said that he wanted to state that so we could move on.

It's where we “moved on” to that troubled me. The Church always seems to stumble here--it occurred in the Trinity negotiations for Duarte and now again over coffee with this new bishop-elect eager to declare a fresh direction. It seems, as blogger and Lutheran pastor Keith Anderson writes, to be the disposition of the Church to ask small questions instead of big ones, even though in Baptism we begin this Christian life asking and answering the biggest of all: “Whose will you be?” Challenging questions diminish from here.

Bishop-elect Dietsche said an e-letter would be going out the next day enlisting chaplain/counselors for Charlotte's Place. During the nicer stages of negotiation with Trinity the rector and his staff took me on a tour of that outreach center and they were rightfully proud of it. The parish coffee house/drop-in center had been established in memory of a parishioner. Its opening pre-dated OWS yet it was ready-made for such with refreshment and bathroom facilities, counseling on request, albeit only if those needs occurred during the hours of 12-6 PM, Monday-Friday. During my tour I asked about extending the hours since extraordinary times seemed to require a more intense response. I was told--and it was repeated often-that Trinity had taken the "day shift" support of OWS. Still, “If this was such an embattled population in need of chaplain/counselor support wouldn't it make sense to review those hours of availability?”

Andy said that many of the OWS protesters were from out of town, and, in addition to being homeless, probably had emotional problems. Providing counselors seemed to be the decent thing to do. We thought this was a good step--quibbled awhile about how many protesters were in this state—but supported it nonetheless. No one wanted to make tending this needful population into a tug-of-war. It was a small question, asked and answered. Yet, we urged that the letter include information about why protesters had come to the metro area in the first place...the larger question and essential to them. Indeed, this was not a suffering band drifting to and fro. Theirs is a message we needed to hear.

Frankly, OWS had been waiting for this Wall Street parish to make an attempt at rectitude after the debacle of Duarte. The cynical among OWS said the parish would revert to type and promote its charitable work. The sort of thing a corporate mind would come up with, they said. And here it was: the Diocese of New York had formed an alliance to push the most vulnerable of the OWS population to the front of the stage, changing the focus. I thought that conclusion was ungenerous; it was more related to the Church’s love affair with small questions. Moreover, when I asked Dietsche if he had reached out to OWS about this population, attended any of the open forums, working groups, or General Assemblies all of which happened nightly in public and private spaces only blocks away he said, "No."

This penchant to shy away from complication and adhere to reduction brings us back to the Church's proclivity to settle for charity at the expense of advocacy. Rev. Peter van Eys wrote, “Churches need (afflicted) people around in order to be involved in charity rather than justice.” Such acts salve consciences, momentarily answering the smaller questions, but they do nothing to address the larger ones. For Martin Luther King, society is not educated by the Samaritan story (charity) but by the larger question of why injustice plagues the entire Jericho Road (justice).

We urged, we pleaded, that the e-letter include a reference to the motive of protesters. It was part of their story. My family and I had first-hand experience with this mistake and its correction. Over Christmas we were delighted to host an OWS hunger striker. It felt good to ply this person--now eating again--with food and a warm hearthside. While we enjoyed the cozy feeling of doing good, our guest rose every day, read the paper thoroughly, and gently educated us on why there was disenfranchisement. We saw only the smaller question, but our traveler brought the revelation of the larger one to us.

I am beginning to think the Church’s salvation may lie in support to Emergent Churches, ones whose street sense and relevance keeps discernment clearer and truer. If the Emergent Churches are not encumbered, they could restore a priority to questions posed for us. The path we’re on now is one to irrelevance…if we’re not there already.

The Rt. Rev. George E. Packard retired as the Bishop Suffragan of the Armed Services and Federal Ministries in 2010. He writes a blog called, "Occupied Bishop." He and his wife Brook are active supporters of the Occupy Movement and live in Rye, NY.

by Bill Carroll

Note: The following is a brief attempt to tell the history of the Episcopal Church in a relatively non-partisan way (but with a distinct perspective that I don’t presume is shared by all). We include this in our welcome packet at the parish I serve. I’m offering it for the sake of starting a discussion about how we tell our story. What would you change if you had to tell our story in a brief way? What would you add or subtract? I should note that this is part of a bigger packet. There is, for example, another pamphlet that talks about “full and equal welcome.”

O God, you manifest in your servants the signs of your presence: Send forth upon us the Spirit of love, that in companionship with one another your abounding grace may increase among us; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
--Book of Common Prayer, p. 125

In many ways, the Episcopal Church can be viewed as the heir to the English Reformation in the United States and several other countries of the Western Hemisphere. Among churches emerging out of the sixteenth-century reformations, the Church of England was distinctive in several respects. Unlike Protestant churches on the continent, the English Reformation resulted in a fundamentally political (rather than doctrinal) separation from Rome and its bishop, the pope. More than most other churches, it retained the sacraments, traditions, and governance of the medieval Church, and it saw itself as both Catholic and Reformed.

Some chose to emphasize one aspect of this heritage over the other, but tensions between different factions in the Church were resolved by royal supremacy. In the so called Elizabethan settlement, it was also agreed that different points of view would co-exist within a single church with agreement about the historic Creeds and a common liturgy, embodied in the Book of Common Prayer. One great apologist for this way of being Christian, John Jewel, argued that the Church of England intended to preserve the faith and practice of the undivided Church. Another, Richard Hooker, argued against the Puritan party that the Church of England would be governed by Scripture, tradition, and reason rather than by Scripture alone.

After the American Revolution of 1776, the Episcopal Church became self-governing, no longer subject to the Crown. With help from the Scottish nonjurors (bishops so called because they had refused an oath of allegiance to the monarch) and eventually the Archbishop of Canterbury, bishops were ordained for service in the new world. The Church was also organized with a Constitution that provided for substantial roles for lay people and clergy other than bishops in the governance of the Church. Every three years, the General Convention meets to set policy for the Church. It is a bicameral legislature, with a house of clerical and lay deputies and a house of bishops. Similarly, each diocese is governed by a diocesan convention, which passes canons (church laws) and resolutions (statements of policy) and elects officers to assist the bishop in the governance of the local church. Unlike some Protestant denominations, in the Episcopal Church, the diocese is the fundamental unit of organization, and the bishop is the chief pastor for all Episcopalians in that diocese. We believe that bishops are successors to the apostles, charged with overseeing the whole Church, coordinating its mission, and preserving the eyewitness testimony to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Our diocese, Southern Ohio, includes 82 congregations and about 25,000 people. At the local level, laypeople also participate in Church governance through the vestry, or governing board, and through the annual parish meeting, which elects vestry members and some of the officers of the congregation.

The Church of England did missionary work throughout the British Empire. Beginning in the nineteenth century, bishops from churches established by the British, some of them in former colonies and others still part of the Empire, began to meet to discuss matters of mutual concern. Today, the churches that meet together in this way comprise the Anglican Communion, the third largest Christian body in the world, with roughly 80 million members. Churches in the Anglican Communion are autonomous, fully self-governing, but they do cooperate in mission and seek to come to a common mind on questions of Christian teaching. In recent years, tensions have arisen in the Anglican Communion over different attitudes toward the role of women in the Church and society, and the attitudes of the Church toward LGBT persons. It remains an open question how these tensions will be resolved in a postcolonial age.

From our Anglican heritage, the Episcopal Church has received a habit of encouraging conscientious disagreement within a culture of civility and a framework of Common Prayer. We do not always agree about everything, but we come to the Lord’s Table together. The Episcopal Church is incredibly diverse. It includes all political parties, most theological persuasions, and just about every point of view. We do take stands on matters of public policy and have a strong tradition of advocacy for social justice, but we also try to provide room for those who disagree.

Our fundamental traditions are a generous orthodoxy, rooted in the Holy Scriptures and the historic, ecumenical creeds, and a Christian humanism that is open to all truth, wherever it may be found. We encourage respectful criticism and a variety of interpretations of the traditions we cherish and love. Our Church has proven remarkably open to such developments as the theory of evolution and historical criticism of the Bible. Still, we try to preserve a faithful witness to Jesus Christ, which is both open to mystery and responsible to the testimony of our brothers and sisters in other times and places.

Our hope is summarized in the words of a prayer we offer together at Daily Evening Prayer, that “in companionship with one another, [God’s] abounding grace may increase among us, through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

The Rev. Bill Carroll serves as Rector of the Church of the Good Shepherd in Athens, Ohio. His parish blog is at here

by Derek Olsen

As part of his year-end round-up, our beloved editor Jim Naughton threw down a gauntlet concerning the types of stories and discussions that he’d like to see around the Café in the coming year:

My sense, increasingly, is that these type of stories need to take a backseat to stories that point a way forward. The popularity (#10) of that small item about the decline in membership in our church, and the interest sparked by Bishop Budde's willingness to look mainline decline in the eye and talk about how the church should respond, give me some hope that the attention of our church is shifting, and that perhaps, however gradually given that we are an all volunteer operation that depends heavily on aggregated items, the attention of the Cafe can shift a bit as well. The greatest danger facing our church has less to do with its stand on LGBT issues than with its quickly diminishing capacity to witness effectively on behalf of the Gospel.

I am hoping we can pay some attention to the simple issue of survival in the year ahead.

In response, then, I’d like to offer my first of probably several reflections by way of picking up that gauntlet. This response is further informed by a later discussion that was entitled “In renewing the Episcopal Church , what exactly is up for grabs?” I’m going to focus on what is not up for grabs, from my perspective, and why it’s not up for grabs.

To begin properly, we must acknowledge the kinds of problems that face us. Our membership is declining. What remains of our membership tends to be aging. Our children leave the church when they head off to college (or before) and, at the traditional time for coming back—when they start a family and have kids—they’re not coming back. (I’ve heard the birth-rate arguments and I don’t buy them; it doesn’t matter how many children we have if they don’t attend our churches…)

Membership issues are exacerbating budget issues. Giving is down. When members of younger generations do join and do give, it’s often substantially less both dollar-wise and percentage-wise from what the previous generations gave. As a result, the parishes that have endowments are drawing from the principal not the interest and the bequeathed funds are being drained dry. In dioceses like mine where we have historic buildings, the buildings require more and more money to repair. If repairs are put off—guess what?—the maintenance problems get worse and more expensive.

Churches aren’t the only ones having budget issues—so are clergy. As church budgets get squeezed, so too do clergy salaries. Most churches have gotten rid of their rectories, and for the ones that have retained clergy housing, the housing itself further complicates the maintenance expenditure picture. This means that housing costs must be paid to the clergy too, further stretching budgets. But most people graduating from seminary are saddled with increasing amounts of debt. They’ve got to be able to eat, feed and clothe their families—and pay back student debt. And, no, expecting the clergy spouse to bear the full burden (or slashing the clergy health benefits because the spouse has some [that they usually have to pay for]) doesn’t cut it either and only fuels the already high rate of clergy divorce. Increasingly, I hear two answers floated to ease the burden: part-time clergy and bi-vocational clergy. Both of these may be options for some congregations. Heck, it works for a lot of Methodist and Baptist parishes I know—but those churches are also used to this kind of arrangement; the parish doesn’t already have a set of expectations geared towards full-time clergy—as most of our parishes do.

So—what do we do? What sort of tentative half-measures do we take, or, alternatively, what sort of wacky out-of-the-box solutions do we throw ourselves towards? What should we do? Or, what shouldn’t we do?

For me, from my perspective, there’s one thing that’s completely off the table. If we want to renew and strengthen the Episcopal Church in light of these very real challenges that are facing us, then the one thing that we dare not mess with is our commitment to the contents and spirit of our 1979 Book of Common Prayer.

I know, I can hear some of you already: just another attempt to put our heads in the sand and “worship the worship.” That would indeed be a worthy charge—if we were a set of local social services agencies, or a set of local political action committees. Those groups have no need of worship; it’s not their key function. But we’re a church. Care and attention to how, when, and why we worship isn’t just “worshiping the worship”, it’s connecting with our primary function from which all of our other functions flow. That having been said, I want to attend to three areas in particular.

First, many of our people know the Book of Common Prayer as the book that our Sunday services come from. I’ll challenge this mindset in a moment, but this much at least ought to be the case. The Sunday services that Episcopalians experience should be common because they should proceed in common from the Book of Common Prayer. Whether it ought to be or not, Sunday morning is our main scheduled moment in the cultural eye. Deciding to monkey with the services in order to appear relevant doesn’t look relevant, it looks desperate. While I realize that the reverend clergyperson might have had a flash of insight on Thursday night that involves changing everything around to make some point about something going on in the news or culture, consider that not everyone else might share or appreciate that insight. Consider that the couple on the brink of divorce or the mother who just heard of the death of a neighbor’s son, might not be feeling your whimsy at the moment. We have enough things in our life and daily surroundings that change on a constant basis. Click over to the CNN website and the stories will be different from what was there just 5 minutes ago.

We need some constants too.

One of the most consistent and enduring images of God in the Psalms is the rock. What if our church could witness to that aspect of who God is by at least providing the stability of common prayer?

I’m not saying the book is perfect. There are certainly some things that I’d change if I had the chance. But recognize this: 1) it is an authentic expression of the historic Western liturgy that has nourished literally millions who have come before us. 2) It is an authentic expression of the English devotional experience. (The importance of this is not that it’s English, of course, but that it is a rooted, embodied, inherited tradition that has been embraced and passed on by a diverse group over a period of centuries—not just dreamed up by a few people last week.) 3) It is an authentic expression of historic Anglican liturgy that balances reform of Western norms with Scripture and the theological and spiritual practices of the Early Church. That’s actually quite a lot of things going for it—and it’s more things than would be going for most services either you or I would dream up.

Most people I know don’t go to church on Sunday morning to experience the rector’s latest exciting innovation; they go to church because they hope to experience God and to get a concrete sense of what it means to live out love of God and love of neighbor. Using the book doesn’t guarantee any of this, but it is a big step in the right direction.

Frankly, I don’t care if you’re “into” Quaker spirituality and so want to cut out some of the prescribed prayers and have us sit in silence then; I’m “into” Anglican spirituality, and I’d appreciate it if you did what the book says to do. Perhaps I’m a little touchy on this topic, but I’ve seen too many places where Sunday morning deviations from the book are about the rector inflicting the twists and turns of their own spiritual journey on the congregation. If we want to get serious about being the Episcopal Church then I suggest we would do well to get serious about our core messages and principles and—by canon as well as plain ol’ good sense—these are in the book. As a layperson, I see the book as a contract. It may not be exactly what I want, but it’s an agreed-upon corpus of embodied theology that we have all given assent to. I promise to use the book, and I expect that the clergy will do the same. This is a benefit that we offer those who come seeking—a place of stability in a culture that desperately needs it.

Second, (this is perhaps my most important point) the Book of Common Prayer isn’t just the book for Sunday services. Instead, the Book of Common Prayer offers a full integrated spiritual system that is intended as much for the laity as the clergy and which is founded in a lay spirituality that arose in the medieval period. If you look at the book as a whole, it offers a program for Christian growth built around liturgical spirituality. The best shorthand I have for this is the liturgical round. It’s made up of three components: the liturgical calendar where we reflect upon our central mysteries through the various lenses of the seasons of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ and in his continuing witness in the lives of the saints, the Daily Office where we yearly immerse ourselves in the Scriptures and Psalms, and the Holy Eucharist where we gather on Holy Days to most perfectly embody the Body of Christ and receive the graces that the sacraments afford.

So—here’s why this is important and the meat of how it relates to the issue at hand. The purpose of any spiritual system is to bring the practitioner and their community into a deeper relationship with God—to create a family of mature Christians. Through their increasing awareness of who God is, how much God loves them and all of creation, they translate that love they have been shown into concrete acts of love and mercy in the world around them. There are several different strategies that different spiritual systems use to accomplish this. One of the classic ones—referred to in St Paul’s direction to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thess 5:17)—is the recollection of God. The idea here is that if we can continually keep in mind the goodness of God, the constant presence of God, and an awareness of the mighty works of God on behalf of us and others, that we will more naturally and more completely act in accordance with God’s will and ways. Continual recollection is nearly impossible, but there are methods to help us in this habit.

A primary goal of liturgical spirituality is to create a disciplined recollection of God. Thus, if we specifically pause at central points of time—morning and evening; noon and night; Sundays and other Holy Days—to reorient ourselves towards God and the mighty acts of God, whether recalled to us through the Scriptures or experienced by us through direct encounters with the sacraments, then this discipline will lead us towards a habitual recollection of God.

In the liturgical round, the Book of Common Prayer gives us specific moments to stop and orient our time and ourselves around the recollection of God. As a result, one of the most important parts of the book is the Daily Office section that provides forms for prayer at morning, noon, evening and night. These prayer offices are our fundamental tool for disciplined recollection; they provide the foundation for our spiritual practice. This foundation, then, is punctuated by the Eucharist on Holy Days (at the least). And, conceptually, this is how we should view Sundays—not the day of the week on which we go to church—but as a Holy Day which recurs on a weekly basis.

While this sounds all awfully churchy it’s actually not. Indeed, this liturgical structure was mediated into the prayer-book tradition by a spiritual devotion for the laity. The idea of the Daily Office was originally a regular communal practice. By the end of the 4th century, it was transitioning into a monastic practice and began to be less of a feature in lay life. By the medieval period, it was expected that the laity would be at Matins and Vespers—as well as Mass—on Holy Days. With the rise of lay literacy in the High Medieval period though, came the Books of Hours. These were the central devotional books used by laypeople (men and women alike) and they contained a cycle of offices that followed the basic structure of the monastic and priestly breviaries but with reduced psalmody and no seasonal variations. On the eve of and during the English Reformation, the Latin Books of Hours and the English-language prymers held an important place in the devotional lives of upper- and middle-class lay Christians who prayed these several Offices on a daily basis. The Daily Offices that appeared in the initial 1549 Book of Common Prayer—and in every book subsequent—are equally derived from these lay prymers as well as the Sarum breviaries.

Just as the prymers informed the faith of the laity before the Reformation, so the Offices inform the faith of the laity (and clergy) now. Much of the talk I’ve heard about how effective or energetic a parish is seems oddly institutional. That is, the discussions seem to focus on what sort of programs are run out of the building, what sort of activities the institution supports. But that’s only part of the story. The other part that is harder to quantify yet no less important is how the faith is filtering into the everyday lives of the people in the parish. When the strengthening effects of the sacraments, when daily recollections of God impel a person to stand up against questionable business practices in the office or against a bully in the schoolyard, the Gospel is being lived entirely apart from what programs are housed in the church edifice.

What’s more, recollection is more accessible than just marking whether you showed up to church or not, prayed the Office or not. Our parishes have an important role here. What if someone has a real job and can’t make it to church when a service is being had? The fact that the parish is having a service, that members of the congregation are gathering in prayer or for the sacraments, is itself a recollective witness. If the people prevented—by whatever cause—from coming can but remember that a service is occurring, that prayer and praise are taking part, that they are connected to the act through the spiritual community that binds the parish together, then recollection has occurred; the parish is doing its work. And it doesn’t just serve for congregants either. A church with open doors and posted services serves as a recollective witness to anyone passing by, whether it’s their spiritual home or not. They are reminded—wherever they happen to be on their spiritual journey—that here are people who are remembering God and his redeeming love in the world. Who knows what the impact of that may be? Who knows when they might not walk past and instead walk in.

For me, this is where the church lives or dies. Are we forming communities that embody the love of God and neighbor in concrete actions? Not just in what programs the institution is supporting, but are we feeding regular lives with a spirituality that not only sustains them but leads them into God’s work in a thousand different contexts in no way related to a church structure? Are our parishes witnessing to their members and to the wider community in their acts of corporate prayer for the whole even when the whole cannot be physically there? Therefore this is why, when we worry about the fate of the church, my answer will be a call for more liturgy. Not because I like to worship the worship, but because of the well-worn path to discipleship found in the disciplined recollection of God that the liturgy offers.

My firm belief is that if membership is a problem, our best move is to head for spiritual revitalization. People who are being spiritually fed, challenged, and affirmed by their church will be more likely to show it, to talk about it, and to invite their friends and neighbors to come and see it for themselves. This won’t—it can’t—fix all situations, but even if it doesn’t, spiritual revitalization is what the Church is called to be about.

Third, the Book of Common Prayer sketches the fundamental roles of the four orders of ministry. The laity form the great body of the church, and are called to witness to our faith and practice in the various spaces and places where they find themselves. Bishops are set as overseers to guard the faith of the church and to care for the clergy entrusted to them. The priests are set apart to preach and to administer the sacraments and to give the spiritual and emotional care to communities that are part and parcel of the preaching and sacramental experiences. Deacons are called to serve the bishops and to spearhead the church’s works of mercy.

These roles—identified in Scripture, coded in our tradition, ratified in our prayer book—are not negotiable.

What is negotiable is how we train them and support them.

Will part-time and bi-vocational clergy be the future of our church? I don’t know. But I certainly suspect they will. That means change—and a lot of it. Episcopal congregations have expectations of their clergy; expectations that need to be severely checked if this does turn out to be the new normal. Plenty of churches have gone down this road before. In many of the Methodist and Baptist churches of my acquaintance these realities are the norm, not the exception. But the congregations also have a different expectation of what their clergy will do for them and how they will be present for them.

We don’t need to clergy to lead the Offices for us. We laity can do that ourselves whether corporately or alone. But we do need priests for the Eucharist. We do need bishops for Confirmations and Ordinations. Must these be paid full-time positions? Well—that’s part of the negotiation that needs to happen. The roles themselves, however, are not negotiable.

So, that’s how I see it. As we consider the future of the Episcopal Church, we must do so with a sense of where we’ve come from, where we wish to go and how to keep our experience of and witness to the Triune God at front and center of our efforts. For my part, I find that in the spiritual system of our Book of Common Prayer, in the common prayers agreed upon there, and in the structure of the church that we have received. Let’s think things over, let’s shake things up, but let’s make sure that what’s left at the end of the day never loses sight of the spiritual priorities that drive everything else that we do.

Dr. Derek Olsen has a Ph.D. in New Testament and Homiletics at Emory University. Currently serving as Theologian-in-Residence at the Church of the Advent, Baltimore, he leads quiet days and is a speaker to clergy groups. He has taught seminary courses in biblical studies, preaching, and liturgics. A layman working in the IT field, Derek created and maintains the online Daily Office site The St. Bede's Breviary. His reflections on life, liturgical spirituality, and being a Gen-X/Y dad appear at Haligweorc.

by George Clifford

Paul wrote in II Corinthians, “… we have this treasure in clay jars.” The context supports the common interpretation that clay jars connotes the human body. However, the context, written in the plural first person, also permits understanding clay jars as a metaphor for the Church, the body of Christ.

What treasure do the Episcopal Church’s clay jars contain? And what are the Episcopal Church’s clay jars?

Unlike some doomsayers who predict inevitable demise, I remain convinced that the Episcopal Church has treasure that the much of the rest of the world needs and wants.

The Book of Common Prayer is obviously not our treasure. We have revised the Prayer Book several times during the last two centuries and will surely do so again. Nor is our treasure the Bible, not even the King James Version, now badly dated. And our treasure is certainly not our polity, with its complicated governance structures and bureaucratic procedures filled with checks and balances.

Our treasure is relational and experiential, relationships with God, God's people, and creation experienced in the light of God's grace and love. We proclaim a message of radical hospitality that welcomes everybody; following Jesus, we seek to incarnate sacrificial love and work to bring life to a dying world (food to the hungry, water to the thirsty, healing to the sick, etc.). We also place distinctive emphases on pastoral care, diversity, and ambiguity.

Everything else, no matter how cherished, is a clay jar, useful only as an earthen vessel for a heavenly treasure. Unlike many treasures, the more we share this treasure, the more it increases (remember Jesus’ parables about yeast, mustard seeds, and faithful stewards).

The lack of comment in response to my last two posts at the Daily Episcopalian (Rethinking Episcopal Church Structure Part 1 and Part 2) disappointed but did not surprise me. Two of the three comments concurred that building relationships was more important than any business transacted at General Convention (one deputy wanted to maintain the status quo to preserve the opportunity to cultivate those relationships). The third comment was from an appointed missionary, who defended the importance of international missionaries representing the national church (even if a congregation, diocese, or province provided the funding, the national church could still appoint all international missionaries).

The proposals I offered (transacting national church business electronically, devolving many national programs to provinces, dioceses, or congregations, and creating a regular, church-wide mega-gathering of 50,000 or more Episcopalians) are not ukases. My proposals may even be completely unhelpful. However, merely updating structure (e.g., Bishop Sauls’ proposals), even if it achieves a major reduction in the percentage of income spent on governance and administrative costs (e.g., from 50% to 20%), will not revitalize the Church and reverse its numerical decline. His proposals, which are gathering some support (e.g., from the dioceses of Iowa and Oregon), at best, will retard the rate of decline. This may delay the inevitable or, God willing, allow the Church to replace its timeworn clay jars with new ones better suited to the twenty-first century.

The Episcopal Church needs a structure that is inexpensive to maintain/operate, engages a substantial portion of the Church (not just a couple of dozen people per diocese), and, most importantly, flexibly focuses on ministry and mission rather than institutional maintenance. My goal in proposing a radically revised Church structure was to ignite a conversation within the Church that would lead to genuine reform, breaking old clay jars and replacing them with new ones, jars better suited to our flattened and electronically connected world.

Too often, individuals and organizations prefer focusing on smaller, tactical questions (e.g., who appoints missionaries) than addressing broad, strategic questions. The Episcopal Church is plainly in numerical decline. Even as our physical bodies wear out, so do the clay jars of Church structure. If continuing business as usual – preserving the clay jars of our polity – could reverse the decline, the decline would have ended before now. Assuredly, we, individually and collectively, are not committed to ecclesial decline. Therefore, the difficult conversation about how we replace our clay jars to make our treasure more accessible to more people is our most urgent imperative – if the Episcopal Church is ever again to be a vital, vibrant, and growing part of the body of Christ.

George Clifford is an ethicist and Priest Associate at the Church of the Nativity, Raleigh, NC. He retired from the Navy after serving as a chaplain for twenty-four years and now blogs at Ethical Musings (http://blog.ethicalmusings.com/).

Clarity about the purpose and value of our connectedness (see Part 1) suggests that The Episcopal Church (TEC) move into two directions. I write this with some trepidation about getting too much into the weeds, but TEC, if it is not merely to survive but to regain the vibrancy that once made it a powerful and forceful witness for the gospel must reinvent itself before it becomes entirely irrelevant.

First, TEC should eliminate its triennial General Convention. Instead, TEC should adopt a virtual legislative and electoral process. A virtual process, unimaginable to eighteenth century Episcopalians, might advantageously:

• Preserve our national bicameral structure and the option to vote by orders (i.e., the basic principles of representation and democracy inherent in our approach to governance) ;
• Expand the number of deputies (lay and clergy) per diocese, broadening representation;
• Recognize that the large number of lay and clergy deputies already precludes meaningful floor debate, i.e., the real action happens either in smaller bodies (the House of Bishops, for example, or, more often, in a committee or commission);
• Substitute virtual interaction for physical interaction, a change some national committees and commissions have already made;
• Permit more timely decisions, with the virtual successor to General Convention convening annually or perhaps even quarterly;
• Enable delegates to have more time per issue by focusing on fewer issues at a time;
• Require minimal national staff support to track actions, disseminate documents digitally, train new diocesan IT staff (dioceses train and otherwise support their deputies), etc.;
• Save the substantial sums now spent on deputy travel, per diem, etc. (approximately $35,000 per diocese).

Here’s how this process might work at the national level for two important issues, the election of a Presiding Bishop and approving a rite of blessing for same sex marriages. The House of Bishops at one of their regular meetings would, using the current process, choose a candidate to become the next Presiding Bishop. The House of Deputies would meet to discuss and vote whether to confirm that person electronically while the House of Bishops remained in session. The possibility and problems stemming from the House of Deputies rejecting the House of Bishops’ choice are less costly but otherwise the same as if the House of Deputies were meeting in person rather than virtually. Deputies vote by diocesan delegation, minimizing any problems caused by people being in various time zones. Diocesan delegations could easily have more members and include persons now excluded by practical considerations from serving. In other words, a virtual process would be more representative, more inclusive, and far less costly than the current process.

Approving a liturgy for blessing same sex marriages might begin, as does the current legislative process, with a resolution that originated in either the House of Bishops or Deputies to form a national consultation tasked with drafting a proposed rite. The national consultation could function through a combination of physical and virtual meetings. Once drafted, each diocese might then choose its own process to study the proposed rite and any supplemental materials the consultation furnishes. Dioceses, within a stipulated timeframe, could then vote, again using their own process, to commend the text in whole or part, propose revisions, or recommend against approval in whole or part. If a majority (or a super majority, depending upon the issue and canons) approves, the text stands adopted. If a majority recommend against acceptance, the issue dies.

If, as is most likely, a majority of dioceses proposes revisions, the national consultation reconvenes, revises its original draft, and then submits the revision to the dioceses. This process is admittedly unlikely to produce quick results. However, a process that takes longer and involves more people will quite likely achieve greater acceptance for the final text upon adoption, important in a denomination riven by recent controversies that led to schism. Since group processes often produce inelegantly worded documents (i.e., bad liturgy), successive iterations of the process (i.e., each time the national consultation sends the text to the dioceses) might progressively narrow dioceses’ latitude in proposing additional revisions to parts of the text not yet agreed.

Each General Convention faces hundreds of resolutions including proposed revisions to the Church calendar, possible changes to the liturgy, nominations to various boards and groups, proposed positions on international and national social justice issues, resolutions recognizing or commending individuals or groups, etc. To the maximum extent feasible, groups or structures other than General Convention will most appropriately deal with these matters. For the remainder of the agenda, virtual processes similar to those sketched in the two examples above will work.

Second, TEC should devolve ministry and mission, to the maximum extent practical, with the national church not performing any ministry or mission that provinces, dioceses, or congregations can reasonably provide. Examples of efforts more effectively performed elsewhere within Christ's body include not only starting new congregations but also most programming (youth work, curriculum development and writing, funding national and international missionaries, etc.). Devolving these endeavors to provinces and dioceses (and wealthy parishes) would creatively build on local strengths, help to ensure that local experience informs global practice, and reduce administrative overhead. Communication and rapid transportation increasingly make central staff expensive and unnecessary.

For example, the superb Diocese of North Carolina youth missioner could devote half her time to training and resourcing youth ministry in other dioceses in the province. Under such an arrangement, everybody wins. The diocese expands its youth ministry, hiring a second youth missioner paid with funds previously forwarded to the national church; a gifted person meets provincial needs; the new youth missioner learns from a great role model; and NC youth benefit by interacting with two adults. With nine provinces, TEC would have the equivalent of four and a half full-time staff supporting youth ministry; if some larger or wealthier parishes discerned a similar call to serve youth ministers, the potential benefit to TEC is still greater.

By expecting provinces, dioceses and larger/wealthy parishes to expand their local ministries and missions to include a gift of intentional ministry to the broader Episcopal Church, we would create a broader, more inclusive community that better utilized the diverse gifts of more of God's people. Collegial conversations between parishes, dioceses, and provinces could coordinate this effort to ensure comprehensive programs (e.g., some diocese or parish undertakes to write religious formation materials for every age group).

Third, and finally, TEC could host a regular (once every 1-4 years) gathering of 50,000 plus Episcopalians in a large sports arena. This event would: (1) visibly demonstrate The Episcopal Church’s health and vitality in a newsworthy event; (2) energize attendees for ministry and mission; and (3) inspire attendees with a vision of who God calls us to be and what God asks us to do in response. In other words, TEC would intentionally adopt a mission strategy that complements the many strengths inherent in being a denomination in which 97% of its congregations have an average Sunday attendance of less than 351 people. Megachurches and political rallies, rock concerts, and professional sporting events achieve similar results, creating community, engendering commitment, and motivating people by hosting large gatherings. TEC has the advantage of having an existing small group structure (5000 plus congregations, 110 dioceses, 9 provinces, and untold other groups, committees, choirs, schools, and so forth) through which freshly inspired and motivated thousands can engage in ministry and mission. The importance of the once a decade gathering of Anglican bishops at Lambeth only hints at the magnitude of the potential effect that these regular mega-gatherings of Episcopalians could have on the denomination, the larger Church, and the world.

In many respects, this third proposition is the most critical. The first proposal, reinventing General Convention as a virtual process, provides the organizational resources of time and money required to fund a mega-event. General Convention now costs approximately $12.2 million every three years. With a virtual process, $10-11 million should be available to fund mega-events.

The second proposal, devolving as much ministry and mission from the national church to provinces, dioceses, and congregations disperses and multiplies the opportunities for people to become meaningfully involved in the Church. With creative and thorough implementation, the second proposal conceivably allows the national church to fund its revised operation through reliance on endowment and rental income and 1% or perhaps even ½ of 1% of congregational giving.

Currently, TEC, according to its Chief Operating Officer, spends 47% of its revenues on overhead. That is scandalous in comparison to the standards by which donors and rating agencies judge other non-profits. I’m confident that our disproportionately large overhead does not make God happy. We can do better. And if we truly believe that we have the bread and water of life in a world that is dying for lack of them, we must do better. Bishop Sauls’ plan takes steps in the right direction. But we need to go further, to remember who we are and what God has called us to do in the twenty-first century. Then we need to move forward boldly and quickly, seizing the moment, exchanging the tired structures and patterns that have brought us this far for ones better suited for the present.

George Clifford is an ethicist and Priest Associate at the Church of the Nativity, Raleigh, NC. He retired from the Navy after serving as a chaplain for twenty-four years and now blogs at Ethical Musings (http://blog.ethicalmusings.com/).

by George Clifford

The Episcopal Church’s Chief Operating Officer, the Rt. Rev. Stacy Sauls, has proposed a plan for substantially revising the Church’s national structure and governance. Perhaps Bishop Sauls’ recommendations are insufficiently radical.

Why should The Episcopal Church (TEC) have a national structure that unites its nine provinces and one hundred ten dioceses into a single organization? What is the purpose of this national structure?

In spite of the Anglican Communion’s Lambeth Quadrilateral and broad, ecumenical acceptance of four orders of ministry (lay, deacon, priest/presbyter, and bishop), no one pattern of ecclesiastical structure has a clear, widely agreed, biblical and theological mandate. Significant differences exist in the organizational patterns of the Romans, Anglicans, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Baptists, and others. Consequently, in ecclesiastical organizations, as in secular entities, form can beneficially follow function, a point implicit in Bishop Sauls’ proposal. Once clear about the purpose (function) for our national structure, possible answers to questions about organizational structure, governance, and finances will become more apparent. TEC’s current structure is largely an inheritance from the late eighteenth century, encrusted with adaptations, and still focused on eighteenth century preoccupation with governance and missions, domestic and foreign, in territories in which the Anglican Communion had little or no presence.

A national structure constitutes, first and foremost, the visible expression of the Church’s unity. Episcopalians may often act as if they are congregationalists or even individualists. Nevertheless, Episcopalians have historically emphasized the Church’s visible unity, an emphasis that incidentally resonates well among younger adults who value relationships over organizational structure and governance. The former dean of Duke Divinity School, L. Gregory Jones, has suggested the helpful metaphor of cities for Christian organizations: “Cities have a vibrant core, permeable boundaries and strong networks. But many of today’s Christian institutions are more like corporations, tightly bounded and working alone.” Using Jones’ metaphor, TEC should transform itself from eighteenth century institution into twenty-first century city that welcomes all and builds community.

Second, a national structure provides organization and resources to accomplish ministries and missions that local congregations, dioceses, and provinces cannot accomplish alone, or at least accomplish efficiently by acting independently. For example, the endorsement and support of federal chaplains in the military, Veterans Affairs healthcare system, and federal prisons would be almost impossible apart from the national Church. Other such ministries and missions exist, but far too few to justify having the 75 departments in the Church’s national office that Bishop Sauls has counted.

In general, TEC, like many organizations, often functions most effectively (i.e., achieves its goals) and efficiently (i.e., using the fewest possible resources) by operating as locally devolved as practical while still preserving its unity. Devolution can allow greater local flexibility (no style of ministry or pattern of mission has proven universally superior), increased and more broadly diversified ownership, and reduced administrative overhead.

For example, responsibility for establishing new congregations best resides with dioceses or even local congregations. Unlike TEC’s formative decades in which TEC lacked viable dioceses (and often congregations) in large swaths of the nation, there is no longer a persuasive rationale for centralizing new church planting. The ministerial expertise, demographic data, marketing skills, and other non-financial resources required for new church plants to succeed are not denominationally specific and widely available. Some local congregations and all dioceses can plant new congregations, investing leadership, money, and people in response to population growth and shifts. Evangelism might make many Episcopalians uncomfortable, but we cannot delegate to others the clear gospel responsibility to make disciples, even when we nominally support that delegation with money and prayers. (Unlike authority, nobody can delegate responsibility.)

In the twenty-first century, knowledge is often the most important resource to share as broadly as feasible. In many large voluntary organizations, communication flows routinely bottom-up and peer-to-peer without top-down guidance or support. Interested cadres of volunteers, working without the oversight, assistance, and cost of paid staff, maintain websites, publish e-newsletters, etc. If an issue, ministry, or mission cannot attract a sufficiently large and dedicated cadre of volunteers, then relying on paid staff is a poor investment of resources usually unlikely to produce significant results.

Alternatively, some tasks, once viewed as denominational responsibilities, may permit economies of scale (i.e., the same results at a lower cost) if performed by an ecumenical agency in support of several denominations. Church insurance, clergy pensions, and healthcare insurance are all examples of important services now provided by TEC that an ecumenical consortium could probably offer at a lower cost (secular insurance companies consistently argue that a larger customer base enables the company to offer improved products at lower costs). The Church Insurance Group and its affiliates, which provide quality products, could take the lead in this endeavor, assuring the preservation of quality and a continuing focus on the needs of churches and their employees while maintaining current high levels of service. Consolidating Episcopal Relief and Development with its Evangelical Lutheran and United Methodist counterparts might also yield economies of scale, diminishing administrative costs and increasing resources available for mission.

In walking the Jesus path, doing is less important than being. Yet the opposite seems to characterize TEC today. We invest a majority of our corporate time and energy in doing. By Bishop Sauls’ count, TEC acts through one hundred forty-five national boards, commissions, committees, conventions, and councils focused on governance (elections, decision-making, and policy formulation) and programming (ministries and missions, many of them potentially more effectively and efficiently implemented by others). Celebrating our common life as one visible branch of the gathered community of God's people receives scant attention and resources.

Having attended the last two General Conventions, my overwhelming perception is that deputies find General Convention rewarding not because of the business conducted but because of the relationships cultivated with Episcopalians from across the denomination. In other words, deputies behaviorally recognize and cherish the validity of my contention that the denomination’s primary function is incarnating the Church’s visible unity in a fragmented world.

A second perception of General Convention deputies is that they work very hard but have too little time for the majority to master the full spectrum of issues on which they vote. Instead, Convention really transacts most of its business via committees, only rarely making substantial modifications to committee recommendations. The process preserves the appearance of a broad-based representative democracy but of necessity relies heavily upon staff, deputies with long tenure, and the influence of interest groups.

A third perception of General Convention deputies is that they poorly match TEC demographics. Although most dioceses fund travel expenses for deputies, deputies must still have the time available to attend (difficult for the self-employed and people with two weeks or less of annual vacation), find somebody else to shoulder other responsibilities (e.g., childcare, especially in case of a single parent), and fulfill any diocesan obligations associated with serving as a deputy (entailing more time and perhaps some costs).

The second part of this post recommends specific proposals that TEC can implement to transform an eighteenth century institution into a twenty-first century “city” that welcomes all, strengthens our visible unity, performs the ministries and missions best done by a national office, and concurrently minimizes the effort and costs of governance.

George Clifford is an ethicist and Priest Associate at the Church of the Nativity, Raleigh, NC. He retired from the Navy after serving as a chaplain for twenty-four years and now blogs at Ethical Musings

By R. Channing Johnson

A while back, George Clifford wrote an essay titled “Is the Episcopal Church Going the Way of the Grange.” Like Clifford, I have taught undergraduate and graduate statistics (I call them “sadistics” in sympathy with students). I liked his analysis of the continuing decline of the Episcopal Church and of how budget allocations indicate that the main agenda of TEC is aimed at preserving the status quo of decline.

I maintain that the main problem may be that we tend to ignore the very rapid social change in America since World War II. We now have four different generations and a major cultural divide between those people above versus below the age of approximately 45. While many of us understand that there are some differences in worldview, beliefs, and values, we don’t understand how deep they are and cannot really articulate the differences that affect church participation and membership. As a result, we miss the imperative of change and the nature of appropriate adaptive response.

I became aware of the reality and pain of social change back in the late 1960s and early 1970s, first as chaplain of one of the Episcopal church-related colleges, then as a graduate student at large state university and as the vicar of an experimental ministry at a nearby Episcopal congregation. This was when we became aware that the children of the World War II generation had somehow managed to grow up without sharing their parent’s world-view, values, or beliefs. They declared the dawning of the age of Aquarius, celebrated Bishop Robinson’s little book on “situational ethics,” gathered as a mighty herd at Woodstock, and declared that “You can’t trust anyone over 30.” And now, we realize that this was just the beginning and that there was more generational change coming down the pike!

The experimental ministry at the nearby church brought me face to face with the pain of social change. We were seeking to break out of the “active clergy, passive laity” mode by providing an unpaid team of worker priests to conduct Sunday services but primarily to train the laity to carry out the greater work of the church, including pastoral, outreach and caring ministries. This “team ministry” was accepted with enthusiasm and participation by many, but barely accepted by others as an unwelcomed financial necessity. Then the riots at the nearby university broke out and the Episcopal Church got serious about the revisions to the Book of Common Prayer. I’m not sure which caused more pain and anger, but my Social Science response was to conduct a survey.

One survey statement alone identified two distinctly different groups within the congregation. That statement was, “In a changing world, the church ought to be a place of quiet and unchanging stability.” The group that affirmed this statement opposed the team ministry and the changes taking place in church and society, emphasized church building and staff, and were confident that “Young People growing up today will accept the ways of the traditional church.” The group that disagreed with this statement, supported the team ministry and the changes taking place within the church, supported social activism, and tended to define the church primarily in terms community rather than place. These differences between the “Quiet group” and the “Change group” were statistically significant at the point .001 level on the Mann Whitney U Test. (There, I’ll never mention statistic again!) There was no evidence that these differences were based on age.

This study was reported in 1971. Does it sound familiar today? The point is that, although change is staring us in the eye, change is unwelcomed and threatening to a significant number of people. This is the message of Toffler in Future Shock (1970). Change in modern society is coming so fast and furious that some people simply cannot adapt and are overwhelmed. Change is a threat when the church is seen by some as a place of quiet sanity, to be defended as such.

It’s probably fair to characterize older communicants (who make up the great majority of many congregations) as perfectly happy and at home in their churches. After all, their churches fit their cultural values and they tend to “do church” in the old familiar ways that they have come to love. The only problem is that they are growing older and the younger people and children are missing. Weren’t Little Bo Peep’s sheep supposed to return home after they grew up and married? What’s wrong with them, and why is it so hard to carry on a civilized conversation with them? The typical older communicant is happy with their church because it was shaped by the culture they grew up with.

We need to distinguish between the Gospel of Salvation and the culture within which the Gospel is presented. The Good News of God’s love in Jesus remains the same from age to age, but the culture within which the Gospel is presented has always changed with time and location. The Episcopal Church is 1800 would probably seem as strange to a typical Episcopalian as that strange (you fill in the denomination) church down the street. The Gospel is an unchanging gift. The packaging varies with our culture.

But American culture has changing rapidly from generation to generation. I believe that the rapidity and depth of change is something new, something that happened after World War II. The result is that the cultural packaging of the Gospel that is comfortable to the older generation, that they grew up with and came to love, is strange and unwelcoming to the younger generations. Simple statistics document that the younger of the young are the most deeply alienated from the church and that the overall level of alienation is increasing year by year. Statistics from Un-Christian (2007) by David Kinnaman shows that these young, disaffiliated persons agree that Christians are antihomosexual (91%), judgmental (87%, hypocritical (85%), and old-fashioned (78%).

This past April, Tamie Harkins, former Episcopal Chaplain to Canterbury Club at Northern Arizona University posted a blog item that went viral in its popularity. She outlined 20 actions that are “guaranteed” to bring young persons to your church. It was a magnificent cry for changes by a young post-modern voice. We ignore these changes at the price of our long-term survival.

The changes between generations in our society threaten us with decay and loss if we do not respond. But changes poorly selected and imposed can generate opposition and destruction and “the last state of that congregation is worse than the first” (see Luke 11:24-26).

I believe that change and how we address it is the heart of the crisis faced by the traditional churches today. I know that the problem can be addressed because I have experienced congregation coming alive. I have also seen congregations dying that ignore the challenge and other congregations dying because they did not understand the threat of change and the damage from opposition to change. I’ve written elsewhere about the nature and management of adaptive change. We don’t have to follow the style of the large evangelical congregations. We have a wealth of catholic diversity to dip into as we seek to live the Gospel with a change in the cultural packaging of the Gospel.

Consider the following changes that are far-reaching but non-specific enough that they can be designed for that individual congregation in its uniqueness:

Emphasize the church as community, not organization.
Recognize that life in Christ is more about relationships than following rules.

Understand that I am a forgiven sinner and treat others without condemnation.

Be far more attentive to human need and the brokenness around us.

These four adaptive changes seem to me to relate to learning to live the Gospel. We need more emphasis here. There are two other that seem to be more related to changes in our culture.

Promote greater informality in church.

Realize that worship is moving from the cognitive toward the expressive and joyful.

How can we attract the disaffiliated and the stranger if we do not live the Gospel with joy in their midst? Repentance is changing my life direction from one path to another. How can the stranger repent if he has not seen the great alternative of Newness of Life lived in his presence?

The bottom line is that adaptive change to reach out to the younger generations will involve change is us and how we live toward others. What a glorious opportunity! As we walk the path between death from inaction on one side and death from squabbling on the other, we discover the Shepherd who guides us and leads us into his promises. As Father Abraham said to Sara, “Come, Let’s get packed and find out where He’s leading us! Yeee Hah!”

R. Channing Johnson, PhD, is an Episcopal priest working in the Diocese of Arizona and the author of Where have all the Young People Gone, (2011).

By Daniel J. Webster

In a recent move to Baltimore I unearthed the October 5, 1973 issue of the National Catholic Reporter. I was a stringer for the paper then when TV news in Phoenix didn’t pay much. I even had a part time job teaching religion at a local Catholic high school. My ministry included playing guitar at Sunday night masses at the Franciscan Renewal Center in Scottsdale.

Finding this particular issue of NCR not only flooded me with memories (my byline was on page two) but propelled me into the present. On page one was the notice that John Cogley had become an Episcopalian. Cogley was a former executive editor of Commonweal, an NCR columnist and well known Catholic author and journalist.

His migration, I later discovered, is fondly referred to by those who keep score as “swimming the Thames”—the description for Catholics who become Episcopalians. Those going the other way “swim the Tiber.” These expressions acknowledge the two rivers next to seats of ecclesiastical authority of both branches of Christ’s “one, holy, catholic and apostolic church.”

My move to Baltimore came at the calling of the Episcopal bishop to join his staff as canon for evangelism and ministry development. I swam the Thames nearly 20 years ago, went to the Seminary of the Southwest, and was ordained nearly six years later. And so recent events have caused friends, old and new, to ask for my reactions.

The Vatican’s recent establishment of an ordinariate to make it easier on disaffected Anglicans/Episcopalians to return to Rome hit home in my diocese when Mt. Calvary Episcopal Church and its 24 voting members announced they were swimming the Tiber. (Negotiations on separation continue). Around the same time a handful of Church of England bishops announced they were leaving for Rome. The British media seem to be keeping the scorecard on this latest swimming meet.

The list of those who’ve made the swim in the past 450 years is exhaustive. Last September on his visit to England, Pope Benedict XVI beatified Cardinal John Henry Newman, described by some as the most important Anglican convert to Rome. (Cardinal Newman was added to The Episcopal Church’s calendar of saints in 2009. Feb. 21 is his feast day). One of my heroes, Bede Griffiths, a Church of England priest who became a Roman Catholic Benedictine, lived out his life in a Christian ashram in India. He has inspired many who see Christian meditation as a way to change the world.

This swim meet can get crowded at times. Fr. Alberto Cutie made headlines in 2009 when the Spanish language TV talk-show star became an Episcopalian. So did Matthew Fox in 1994 when his creation spirituality teachings got him in hot water with then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. When I asked the bishop who received Fox into the Episcopal Church about how many inquiries he had gotten from Roman priests during his 20-plus year episcopate, he said it was about one a month. To him it was understandable, since he thought the Episcopal Church had become the church Vatican II had envisioned. That ecumenical council profoundly changed the Episcopal Church and shaped the liturgy we use in our 1979 Book of Common Prayer. In the past 40 years Sunday worship has migrated from a predominant Morning Prayer service to the celebration of Holy Eucharist.

Baltimore is arguably the seat of Roman Catholicism in this country. I am one of millions formed by the Baltimore Catechism during childhood. I’ve been taught by Jesuits, Dominicans, Carmelites and Holy Ghost fathers. I embrace Pope Leo XIII’s stand for workers’ rights in Rerum Novarum and regret his invalidation of Anglican/Episcopal holy orders. I champion (and preach) Paul VI’s proclamation of Jesus’s “preferential option for the poor” and regret his undermining of Vatican II and promulgation of Humanae Vitae.

There are hundreds more, lay and ordained, who make the journey from one communion to the other without fanfare. I am still Catholic and will always be. I’m no longer Roman Catholic. I think Jesus wants me to be where I can most effectively at live out his Gospel.

The late John Cogley’s words in that 1973 NCR could speak for many who’ve swum either river either way: “I do not look upon this move as a ‘conversion’ since I have not changed any of the beliefs I formerly held. Rather, it is a matter of finding my proper spiritual home.”

The Rev. Canon Daniel J. Webster is canon for evangelism and ministry development in the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland. This article first appeared in the June issue of Episcopal Journal.

By George Clifford

Ample evidence of the continuing numerical decline in The Episcopal Church (TEC) is widely available. The recent report, Episcopal Congregations Overview: Findings from the 2010 Faith Communities Today Survey, provides the latest documentation:

• Over half (52%) of all Episcopal congregations are in communities of 50,000 or fewer people and another 8% are in rural areas, a cause for concern given the steadily increasing urbanization of the U.S. population.
• The median age of Episcopalians is 57; fewer and fewer young people identify with TEC.
• Unless the median age drops significantly (or life expectancy increases very rapidly!), half of all Episcopalians will die in the next 18 years.
• Only 3.1% of Episcopal congregations have an average Sunday attendance of 351 or greater; these large congregations are more likely to grow than are smaller ones.

The picture is deeply depressing for people who value TEC. Median attendance in Episcopal congregations was 66 in 2009, 72 in 2006, and 77 in 2003 (Episcopal Café: Numbers worth watching). If that rate of decline continues (i.e., median attendance declining by 5 people every 3 years), in 15 years the median attendance will be 31 and in 30 years attendance will average just 6 people on a Sunday per congregation.

Having once taught college statistics, I know that projecting a linear decline over the next 30 years based on three data points relies upon an indefensible methodology. However, the projection underscores the dire future confronting TEC. Although some Episcopal congregations are growing, and a handful of dioceses have experienced some growth, the preponderance of the evidence clearly points to the inevitability of continuing denominational decline if not demise.

This decline constitutes an existential threat to TEC. Unless TEC reverses the decline, TEC will soon become a remnant numbering in the tens of thousands. When that happens, the media will not care, and few non-Episcopalians will even notice, what the Episcopal Church says or does. TEC will no longer be a vital incarnation of God's love in Christ. Instead, TEC will have gone from being the established church in several eighteenth century American colonies and states to being a twenty-first century anachronism.

In my hometown, the Grange has made a similar transition. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the Grange was a vibrant, influential organization that enriched the lives of its members and celebrated, supported, and defended an agrarian lifestyle and economy. Today, that agrarian economy and its associated lifestyle are long gone. The Grange Hall sits empty, maintained by a handful of elderly members who find satisfaction in each other’s companionship and in caring for the building.

Although I hope that no Episcopalian wants such a future for TEC, the denomination’s current trajectory seems inexorably headed toward an elderly and (hopefully!) companionable remnant preserving underutilized buildings as monuments to once vital ministries and missions.

Contrary to some pessimists, I do not believe that the current trajectory and prospective fate of TEC are irreversible. Change is possible. Even as a small rudder can steer a mighty ship, so can visionary leadership steer an organization. Adding the momentum of committed people and well-utilized resources to that vision will accelerate the speed of organizational transformation.

Visionary leadership begins with a simple question: What is our agenda? That question integrates vision (who we are) and mission (what we do) into an action-oriented proposition. An agenda that addresses the root causes of numerical decline may enable TEC to alter course. An agenda that fails to address fifty years of relentless numerical decline in TEC is tantamount to acceding to the denomination’s passing from influence and presence on the American scene.

Current TEC agenda items include developing rites for blessing same sex relationships, publishing a new hymnal, restoring Church buildings and ministries in Haiti and Japan in the wake of disasters, and resolving a host of governance issues, not the least of which is the proposed Anglican Covenant. Those are important issues. Some of them evoke passionate responses; some of them, such as the rite for blessing same sex relationships, are long overdue. As important as any of those issues is, or others that I neglected to mention, none represents or identifies an existential threat to TEC. None of those issues, individually or collectively, will cause the demise, much less the renewal, of TEC.

What should be our agenda?

Better use of our resources is an obvious agenda item if TEC is to reverse its numerical decline. Demographic analysis quickly reveals that TEC has resource distribution problems. A majority of TEC congregations (53%) were founded before 1901. Consequently, population shifts have left many congregations with underutilized facilities in a location where the congregation is unlikely to grow. Apart from staff support, most congregations (remember the median attendance is just 66 people!) expend the largest portion of their resources on maintaining their physical facilities (19-36% of the budget, varying indirectly with average attendance – the larger the attendance, the smaller the percentage spent on facilities). Staff support represents the largest set of expenditures, averaging about 50% of a congregation’s budget. The 17% of congregations with average attendance of 1-25 persons on a Sunday, the 36% of congregations with average attendance of 26-50, and the 66% of congregations with average attendance of 51-100 that now have full-time clergy do not fully utilize this costly resource. Similarly, a disproportionate share of diocesan resources supports a small congregation (episcopal visits, deployment issues, etc.).

From an objective, statistical perspective the analysis proceeds easily. Identify congregations that waste resources based on average Sunday attendance. Then find and implement a creative alternative. Some congregations could merge, with either another TEC congregation or a congregation with whom TEC has intercommunion. Other TEC congregations could yoke together, establishing team ministries, as is increasingly happening in the Church of England. In both cases, congregations could cede surplus assets to the diocese and utilize revenues, previously expended on building maintenance and staff support, to fund mission. Dioceses, serving fewer congregations, would also have more resources for mission.

However, these are not new ideas; TEC has rarely implemented any of these ideas. The real agenda in TEC is not maximizing our participation in God's transformative activity. The real agenda, though generally unspoken and unacknowledged, is self and local congregation. Institutional and personal inertia, emotional attachments to buildings, and Churchmanship modeled on the eighteenth and nineteenth century Church of England all represent substantial barriers to change. As readily apparent from meeting agendas and budgets, congregations and their members invest themselves and their resources more in building maintenance than mission; TEC and dioceses similarly invest themselves more in institutional maintenance than mission.

I am not arguing, à la Rick Warren and The Purpose Drive Life, that the Church’s purpose is evangelism. I am passionate about making a difference in the world. I believe that the Church should incarnate God's love for the world, modeling in community the abundant new life that God wants people to enjoy and offering living water, literally and figuratively, to a world dying of thirst. TEC talks a great deal about this or a similar vision for itself. Yet we fail to incarnate that vision. In truth, we are more about maintaining the status quo than about transforming the world. A dying church unavoidably sends the opposite message. A dying church dissipates its precious resources in a losing campaign to maintain an increasingly lifeless institution.

Yet, we in TEC have some cause for hope. The Episcopal congregations most likely to have experienced numerical growth in the past decade are large and very liberal congregations, according to the 2010 Faith Communities Today Survey. A Church committed to ongoing renewal, a Church that seeks to live ever more fully into love for God and others, and a Church that recognizes that theology, worship, and resources are but earthen vessels is a Church that will become an increasingly vibrant and alive incarnation of the body of Christ. I want this future, this agenda, for TEC. I believe God wants this future, this agenda, for TEC.

George Clifford, a priest in the Diocese of North Carolina. He served as a Navy chaplain for twenty-four years, is now a visiting professor of ethics and public policy at the Naval Postgraduate School, and blogs at Ethical Musings (http://blog.ethicalmusings.com/).

By George Clifford

Recently, a dental hygienist whom I had not previously met cleaned my teeth. She worked in silence, a welcome change from hygienists who expect their patient to converse in spite of having a mouthful of fingers and dental instruments. When she had finished the cleaning, she asked me what I did. I said that I was an Episcopal priest.

She replied that she had been Episcopalian, but that she had tired of the endless controversy and conflict. The massive, continuing exodus of people and congregations from The Episcopal Church left her feeling dismayed. She rebuffed my attempt to describe the size of the exodus factually with anecdotal evidence from her own experience. To her, the exodus had and continued to feel distressingly huge, though I gathered she disagreed with those exiting.

After she moved to Raleigh several years ago, her teenage daughter had made friends at school with kids who attended a nearby Lutheran church. Consequently, this woman was now a Lutheran, believing it good for her daughter to attend church with her friends. Becoming Lutheran conveniently allowed her to avoid the conflicts in The Episcopal Church (TEC). Nevertheless, the hygienist, who subtly indicated that she was not open to returning to TEC, expressed a preference for our liturgy.

My encounter with this woman started me thinking about conflict. Conflict is essential for growth, whether physical, intellectual, emotional, or spiritual. Confronting limits, crossing barriers, and moving into new territory each represent a form of conflict as a person moves beyond the known into the unknown.

Approaches to conflict vary along a spectrum that ranges from avoidance to seeking. Those who seek conflict seem unable to thrive without it. Psychologists sometimes refer to these individuals as “drama queens/kings.” In the absence of sufficient conflict, a drama queen/king will create conflict. Apart from the emotional intensity of conflict, such individuals often seem flat or lost. Living with a drama queen/king frequently exhausts family and friends.

Sometimes, I think TEC has more than its fair share of drama queens/kings. These individuals appear to rely upon conflict-generated emotion to provide momentum for their worthwhile endeavors. This has happened in TEC conflicts over civil rights, prayer book revision, the ordination of women, and full inclusion of GLBT persons. Unfortunately, the conflicts left numerous casualties, like my dental hygienist, in their wake.

At the other extreme are persons who wish to avoid conflict at all costs. Conflict avoidance, like living with a drama queen/king, is emotionally exhausting. Like the proverbial ostrich with its head buried in the sand, conflict avoiders pretend that everyone agrees, that everything is good, and demand the complicity of everyone else in supporting those false claims.

Small congregations that pride themselves on being a harmonious loving family – and there are a large number of these – embody this type of dysfunction. Not only is sustaining the pretense of loving harmony draining, it also prevents the difficult work of identifying and removing the barriers the congregation has erected, usually without conscious intent, that now prevent growth. If the congregation were truly as wonderful as imagined, then people would travel many miles to join. The congregation’s self-image conflicts with reality, pointing to the need for change.

Between those two extremes, a multiplicity of points exist in which, to some degree, conflict functions as an opportunity and potential catalyst for change and growth. One sine qua non for positive conflict management that leads to growth is mutual respect on all sides, something too often lacking in TEC conflicts. Mutual respect requires not only listening (of which we have sought to do much), but also mutual learning (of which we have done too little, convinced that those with whom we have fundamental disagreements have nothing to teach us).

Jesus reminds his hearers to remove the log in their own eye before carping on the mote in another’s eye. I feel strongly about practicing radical hospitality and welcoming all of God's people. However, before I speak about the mote in another’s eye, I would do well to listen to them, to see if they can help me to identify the log in my eye, (presumptuously) presuming that if I knew what the log was, that I would be at work removing it.

A second important element of capitalizing on the potential benefits of ecclesial conflict is to preserve a broad vision of the Church’s identity and mission. Single-issue politics has greatly contributed to the polarization of politics in the United States. Sadly, a similar focus on single-issues has greatly contributed to polarizing TEC.

No person or organization can focus equally on the plethora of needs, concerns, and issues crying out for the Church’s attention and response. Thankfully, that is not the biblical vision of a Christian or of an individual Christian community. Each person and community receives gifts for ministry and a call as to the context for exercising those gifts at a particular time. Together we have the capacity and resources to do what we cannot do individually: address the plethora of needs, concerns, and issues that cry out for the Church’s attention and response.

Functioning as a mosaic necessarily introduces different emphases, even conflicting aspirations and competing claims on limited resources. Promoting particular agendas has too often found expression in myopic vision that excludes those with whom we disagree rather than preserving a breadth of vision that enables us to perceive a beautiful mosaic of God's design.

Do those with whom I disagree incarnate their part in God's mosaic more faithfully, equally faithfully, or less faithfully than I do mine? Asking that question moves beyond mutual respect and holding a broad perspective to begin identifying common goals and values, a third critical element in enabling conflict to become a catalyst for transformation. The Book of Common Prayer provides one such commonality, although some few will disagree about the preferred version. Commitment to loving God and others in Jesus’ name constitutes another commonality. Additional, more particular commonalities almost certainly exist in every conflict.

Finally, people and groups must sometimes live with their disagreements. Unity does not necessitate unanimity. Discerning the movement of God's Spirit often takes time. Being Church is messy. I am disappointed that my new dental hygienist seems permanently disenchanted with TEC. However, I am thankful that she did not leave the Church entirely but moved to another branch in which to live out her spiritual journey. Additionally, perhaps her story is a gift to those who remain in TEC, encouraging us to reflect upon - and change - how we deal with conflict.

George Clifford, a priest in the Diocese of North Carolina, served as a Navy chaplain for twenty-four years, is now a visiting professor of ethics and public policy at the Naval Postgraduate School, and blogs at Ethical Musings.

By John B. Chilton

In A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin (1853) [source], Harriert Beecher Stowe begins,

At different times, doubt has been expressed -whether the representations of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" are a fair representation of slavery as it at present exists.... The writer acknowledges that the book is a very inadequate representation of slavery; and it is so, necessarily, for this reason,— that slavery, in some of its workings, is too dreadful for the purposes of art. A work which should represent it strictly as it is would be a work which could not be read. And all works which ever mean to give pleasure must draw a veil somewhere, or they cannot succeed.

A Key is Stowe's account of the dreadful facts of slavery.

Chapter 9 asks, “Is the system of religion which is taught the slave the gospel?” In it she quotes extensively from the sermon to slaves by the Rt. Rev. William Meade. Meade served as Bishop of Virginia and died in office in 1862. The following is Stowe's commentary on Meade. (See also Frederick Douglass' commentary on Meade's sermon. Stowe and Douglass found Meade very useful in their abolition campaigns.)
__________

Concerning the absolute authority of the master, take the following extract from Bishop Mead's sermon. (Brooke's Slavery, pp. 30. 31, 32.)

Having thus shown you the chief duties you owe to your great Master in heaven, I now come to lay before you the duties you owe to your masters and mistresses here upon earth; and for this you have one general rule that you ought always to carry in your minds, and that is, to do all service for them as if you did it for God himself. Poor creatures! you little consider, when you are idle and neglectful of your masters' business, when you steal and waste and hurt any of their substance, when you are saucy and impudent, when you are telling them lies and deceiving them; or when you prove stubborn and sullen, and will not do the work you are set about without stripes and vexation; you do not consider, I say, that what faults you are guilty of towards your masters and mistresses are faults done against God himself, who hath set your masters and mistresses over you in his own stead, and expects that you will do for them just as you would do for Him. And, pray, do not think that I want to deceive you when I tell you that your masters and mistresses are God's overseers; and that, if you are faulty towards them, God himself will punish you severely for it in the next world, unless you repent of it, and strive to make amends by your faithfulness and diligence for the time to come; for God himself hath declared the same.

Now, from this general rule, — namely, that you are to do all service for your masters and mistresses as if you did it for God himself, — there arise several other rules of duty towards your masters and mistresses, which I shall endeavor to lay out in order before you.

And, in the first place, you are to be obedient and subject to your masters in all things.

And Christian ministers are commanded to "exhort servants to be obedient unto their own masters, and to please them well in all things, not answering them again, or gainsaying." [Titus 2:9.] You see how strictly God requires this of you, that whatever your masters and mistresses order you to do, you must set about it immediately, and faithfully perform it, without any disputing or grumbling, and take care to please them well in all things. And for your encouragement he tells you that he will reward you for it in heaven; because, while you are honestly and faithfully doing your master's business here, you are serving your Lord and Master in heaven. You see also that you aro not to take any exceptions to the behavior of your masters and mistresses; and that you are to be subject and obedient, not only to such as are good, and gentle, and mild, towards you, but also to such as may be froward, peevish, and hard. For you are not at liberty to choose your own masters; but into whatever hands God hath been pleased to put you, you must do your duty, and God will reward you for it.
. . . .

You are to be faithful and honest to your masters and mistresses, not purloining or wasting their goods or substance, but showing all good fidelity in all things.... Do not your masters, under God, provide for you? And how shall they be able to do this, to feed and to clothe you, unless you take honest care of everything that belongs to them? Remember that God requires this of you; and, if you are not afraid of suffering for it here, you cannot escape the vengeance of Almighty God, who will judge between you and your masters, and make you pay severely in the next world for all the injustice you do them here. And though you could manage so cunningly as to escape the eyes and hands of man, yet think what a dreadful thing it is to fall into the hands of the living God, who is able to cast both soul and body into hell!

You are to serve your masters with cheerfulness, reverence, and humility. You are to do your masters'' service with good will, doing it as the will of God from the heart, without any sauciness or answering again. IIow many of you do things quite otherwise, and, instead of going about your work with a good will and a good heart, dispute and grumble, give saucy answers, and behave in a surly manner! There is something so becoming and engaging in a modest, cheerful, good-natured behavior, that a little work done in that manner seems better done, and gives far more satisfaction, than a great deal more, that must be done with fretting, vexation, and the lash always held over you. It also gains the good will and love of those you belong to, and makes your own life pass with more ease and pleasure. Besides, you are to consider that this grumbling and ill-will do not affect your masters and mistresses only. They have ways and means in their hands of forcing you to do your work, whether you are willing or not. But your murmuring and grumbling is against God, who hath placed you in that service, who will punish you severely in the next world for despising his commands.

A very awful query here occurs to the mind. If the poor, ignorant slave, who wastes his master's temporal goods to answer some of his own present purposes, be exposed to this heavy retribution, what will become of those educated men, who, for their temporal convenience, make and hold in force laws which rob generation after generation of men, not only of their daily earnings, but of all their righte and privileges as immortal beings?

The Rev. Mr. Glennie. in one of his sermons, as quoted by Mr. Bowditch, p. 137, assures his hearers that none of them will be able to say, in the day of judgment, "I had no way of hearing about my God and Saviour."

Bishop Meade, as quoted by Brooke, pp. 34, 35, thus expatiates to slaves on the advantages of their condition. One would really think, from reading this account, that every one ought to make haste and get himself sold into slavery, as the nearest road to heaven.

Take care that you do not fret or murmur, grumble or repine at your condition; for this will not only make.your life uneasy, but will greatly offend Almighty God. Consider that it is not yourselves, it is not the people that you belong to, it is not the men that have brought you to it, but it is the will of God, who hath by his providence made you servants, because, no doubt, he knew that condition would be best for you in this world, and help you the better towards heaven, if you would but do your duty in it. So that any discontent at your not being free, or rich, or great, as you see some others, is quarrelling with your heavenly Master, and finding fault with God himself, who hath made you what you are, and hath promised you as large a share in the kingdom of heaven as the greatest man alive, if you will but behave yourself aright, and do the business he hath set you about in this world honestly and cheerfully. Riches and power have proved the ruin of many an unhappy soul, by drawing away the heart and affections from God, and fixing them on mean and sinful enjoyments; so that, when God, who knows our hearts better than we know them ourselves, sees that they would be hurtful to us, and therefore keeps them from us, it is the greatest mercy and kindness he could show us.

You may perhaps fancy that, if you had riches and freedom, you could do your duty to God and man with greater pleasure than you can now. But, pray, consider that, if you can but save your souls, through the mercy of God, you will have spent your time to the best of purposes in this world; and he that at last can get to heaven has performed a noble journey, let the road be ever so rugged and difficult. Besides, you really have a great advantage over most white people, who have not only the care of their daily labor upon their hands, but the care of looking forward and providing necessaries for to-morrow and next day, and of clothing and bringing up their children, and of getting food and raiment for as many of you as belong to their families, which often puts them to great difficulties, and distracts their minds so as to break their rest, and take off their thoughts from the affairs of another world. Whereas, you are quite eased from all these cares, and have nothing but your daily labor to look after and, when that is done, take your needful rest. Neither is it necessary for you to think of laying up anything against old age, as white people are obliged to do; for the laws of the country have provided that you shall not be turned off when you are past labor, but shall be maintained, while you live, by those you belong to, whether you are able to work or not.

Bishop Meade further consoles slaves thus for certain incidents of their lot, for which they may think they have more reason to find fault than for most others. The reader must admit that he takes a very philosophical view of the subject.

There is only one circumstance which may appear grievous, that I shall now take notice of, and that is correction.

Now, when correction is given you, you either deserve it, or you do not deserve it. But, whether you really deserve it or not, it is your duly, and Almighty God requires, that you bear it patiently. You may perhaps think that this is hard doctrine; but if you consider it right, you must needs think otherwise of it. Suppose, then, that you deserve correction; you cannot but say that it is just and right you should meet with it. Suppose you do not, or at least you do not deserve so much, or so severe a correction, for the fault you have committed; you perhaps have escaped a great many more, and at last paid for all. Or, suppose you are quite innocent of what is laid to your charge, and suffer wrongfully in that particular thing; is it not possible you may have done some other bad thing which was never discovered, and that Almighty God, who saw you doing it, would not let you escape without punishment, one time or another? And ought you not, in such a case, to give glory to him, and be thankful that he would rather punish you in this life for your wickedness, than destroy your souls for it in the next life! But, suppose even this was not the case (a case hardly to be imagined), and that you have by no means, known or unknown, deserved the correction you suffered; there is this great comfort in it, that, if you bear it patiently, and leave your cause in the hands of God, he will reward you for it in heaven, and the punishment you suffer unjustly here shall turn to your exeeeding great glory hereafter.

That Bishop Meade has no high opinion of the present comforts of a life of slavery, may be fairly inferred from the following remarks which he makes to slaves:

Your own poor circumstances in this life ought to put you particularly upon this, and taking care of your souls; for you cannot have the pleasures and enjoyments of this life like rich free people, who have estates and money to lay out as they think fit. If others will run the hazard of their souls, they have a chance of getting wealth and power, of heaping up riches, and enjoying all the ease, luxury and pleasure, their hearts should long after. But you can have none of these things; so that, if you sell your souls, for the sake of what poor matters you can get in this world, you have made a very foolish bargain indeed.

This information is certainly very explicit and to the point. He continues:

Almighty God hath been pleased to make you slaves here, and to give you nothing but labor and poverty in this world, which you are obliged to submit to, as it is his will that it should be so. And think within yourselves, what a terrible thing it would be, after all your labors and sufferings in this life, to be turned into hell in the next life, and, after wearing out your bodies in service here, to go into a far worse slavery when this is over, and your poor souls be delivered over into the possession of the devil, to become his slaves forever in hell, without any hope of ever getting free from it! If, therefore, you would be God's freemen in heaven, you must strive to be good, and serve him here on earth. Your bodies, you know, are not your own; they are at the disposal of those you belong to; but your precious souls are still your own, which nothing can take from you, if it be not your own fault. Consider well, then, that if you lose your souls by leading idle, wicked lives here, you have got nothing by it in this world, and you have lost your all in the next. For your idleness and wickedness is generally found out, and your bodies suffer for it here; and, what is far worse, if you do not repent and amend, your unhappy souls will suffer for it hereafter.

Mr. Jones, in that part of the work where he is obviating the objections of masters to the Christian instruction of their slaves, supposes the master to object thus:

You teach them that "God is no respecter of persons;" that "He hath made of one blood, all nations of men;" " Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself;" "All things Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them;'' what use, let me ask, would they make of these sentences from the gospel?

Mr. Jones says:

Let it be replied, that the effect urged in the objection might result from imperfect and injudicious religious instruction; indeed, religious instruction may be communicated with the express design, on the part of the instructor, to produce the effect referred to, instances of which have occurred.

But who will say that neglect of duty and insubordination are the legitimate effects of the gospel, purely and sincerely imparted to servants? Has it not in all ages been viewed as the greatest civilizer of the human race!

How Mr. Jones would interpret the golden rule to the slave, so as to justify the slave-system, we cannot possibly tell. We can, however, give a specimen of the manner in which it has been interpreted in Bishop Meade's sermons, p. 116. (Brooke's Slavery, &c, pp. 32, 33.)

"All things whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them ;" that is, do by all mankind just as you would desire they should do by you, if you were in their place, and they in yours.

Now, to suit this rule to your particular circumstances, suppose you were masters and mistresses and had servants under you: would you not desire that your servants should do their business faithfully and honestly, as well when your back was turned as while you were looking over them? Would you not expect that they should take notice of what you said to them? that they should behave themselves with respect towards you and yours, and be as careful of everything belonging to you as you would be yourselves? You are servants: do, therefore, as you would wish to be done by, and you will be both good servants to your masters, and good servants to God, who requires this of you, and will reward you well for it, if you do it for the sake of conscience, in obedience to his commands.

The reverend teachers of such expositions of scripture do great injustice to the natural sense of their sable catechumens if they suppose them incapable of detecting such very shallow sophistry, and of proving conclusively that "it is a poor rule that won't work both ways." Some shrewd old patriarch, of the stamp of those who rose up and went out at the exposition of the Epistle to Philemon, and who show such great acuteness in bringing up objections against the truth of God, such as would be thought peculiar to cultivated minds, might perhaps, if he dared, reply to such an exposition of scripture in this way: " Suppose you were a slave,—could not have a cent of your own earnings during your whole life, could have no legal right to your wife and children, could never send your children to school, and had, as you have told us, nothing but labor and poverty in this life,— how would you like it? Would you not wish your Christian master to set you free from this condition?" We submit it to every one who is no respecter of persons, whether this interpretation of Sambo's is not as good as the bishop's. And if not, why not?

To us, with our feelings and associations, such discourses as these of Bishop Meade appear hard-hearted and unfeeling to the last degree. We should, however, do great injustice to the character of the man, if we supposed that they prove him to have been such. They merely go to show how perfectly use may familiarize amiable and estimable men with a system of oppression, till they shall have lost all consciousness of the wrong which it involves.

That Bishop Meade's reasonings did not thoroughly convince himself is evident from the fact that, after all his representations of the superior advantages of slavery as a means of religious improvement, he did, at last, emancipate his own slaves. [It is often said Meade emancipated his slaves. He lived with his slave-holding son. It's not clear how many of his slaves were transferred to the son and how many were emancipated.]

But, in addition to what has been said, this whole system of religious instruction is darkened by one hideous shadow,— What does the Southern church do with her catechumens and communicants read the advertisements of Southern newspapers, and see in every city in the slave-raising states behold the depots, kept constantly full of assorted negroes from the ages of ten to thirty! In every slave-consuming state see the receiving-houses, whither these poor wrecks and remnants of families are constantly borne! Who preaches the gospel to the slave-coffles? Who preaches the gospel in the slave-prisons? If we consider the tremendous extent of this internal trade,— if we read papers with columns of auction advertisements of human beings, changing hands as freely as if they were dollar-bills instead of human creatures,— we shall then realize how utterly all those influences of religious instruction must be nullified by leaving the subjects of them exposed "to all the vicissitudes of property."
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John B. Chilton is an economist with expertise in labor economics, industrial organization and applied game theory. He most recently served as an adjunct at the University of Virginia.

By George Clifford

No less an observer of, authority on, and participant in American Christianity than Duke Divinity School professor Stanley Hauerwas has remarked that all American Christians are now congregationalists (Andy Rowell, “The Gospel Makes the Everyday Possible,” Christianity Today, September 2010).

Rampant congregationalism is readily apparent in the Episcopal Church (TEC). Many congregations act as autonomous Christian outposts with only nominal accountability or loyalty to broader ecclesial structures. For example, a relative handful of congregations angry over a variety of issues have attempted to withdraw from TEC as a congregation, taking their members, real property, and other assets with them. Pope Benedict’s recent overture to Anglicans appears to be an attempt to capitalize on this congregationalism, inviting (perhaps even trying to entice by lowering the emotional cost) individuals and congregations to align with Rome.

Concurrently, the Episcopal Bishop of the Diocese of South Carolina, the Rt. Rev. Mark Lawrence, views his diocese as being engaged in a global struggle for the soul of Anglicanism. Among other complaints, Bishop Lawrence accuses TEC Presiding Bishop, the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, of attempting to intrude on his Diocese’s sovereignty by posing queries about the Diocese of South Carolina’s actions in response to at least one of its parish affiliating with another province. Bishop Lawrence’s sentiments are sadly not unique among TEC dioceses, though perhaps more extreme and certainly more publicized. The diocese is historically the Church’s basic organizational unit. However, no diocese, any more than does an individual congregation, constitutes an independent entity. In biblical language, no arm or other part of the body can survive detached from the rest of the body.

So what’s a good Anglican to do?

We can’t turn the clock back. Even if one thinks the Roman Catholics were correct to object to making the Bible available to everyone (and I am not among that number), foreseeing that this would unleash an uncontrollable plurality of views, there is no closing that Pandora’s box. William Tyndale, Miles Coverdale, and all the saints, celebrated and anonymous, who translated the scriptures into the language of the people surely did God's work. Tolerating the uninformed reading and study of scripture that results in a minority of Christians (mostly non-Anglicans, thanks be to God!) adopting idiosyncratic or even harmful interpretations is a small price to pay for the benefits of widespread accessibility to the Bible and competent scholarship. I would rather lament Episcopalians generally having a shallow acquaintance with scripture at best (cf. the recent U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey - Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life) rather than despair over our wide variety of theologies, orthodox or otherwise. Depth of love, not theological perspicacity, measures the Church’s faithfulness.

Unanimity of theological views does not exist in any Church, including the Roman Catholic Church with its strong, central hierarchy. A Roman Catholic who worked for me was the first Polish-American priest Pope John Paul II ordained. Careful to always toe the party line out of understandable personal loyalty to “his” Pope, even this priest, occasionally voiced personal reservations and nuanced points of agreement. Honestly acknowledging, affirming, and appreciating theological disagreement seems far healthier for individuals and the Church than pursuing a mythical holy grail of unanimity.

Furthermore, we can’t substantially compromise our understanding of God's vision for the Church as a community that practices radical hospitality without compromising our faithfulness to Jesus’ call. Compromising our vision of who God has called TEC to be for the sake of peace or even unity within the Anglican Communion is to seek doctrinal purity on a diocesan level rather than congregational level, an equally quixotic and unrealistic quest.

We can improve our skill at playing nice with others, one of life’s basic lessons according to Robert Fulghum in Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. Of course, that idea was not original with Fulghum; Jesus encouraged his followers to love others, including one’s enemies. Playing nice means not picking up one’s marbles and going elsewhere because one loses a game or one’s feelings get hurt. Playing nice also does not include always insisting on having one’s own way. Ironically, research suggests more clergy, most of whom presumably answered a call to minister to God's people, lose their jobs because they have not learned this basic lesson than for any other single reason. One miracle that I discern today is that the Church retains as much fractured unity as it does in spite of the many centripetal forces that seek to tear it apart (individualism, a pervasive congregational ethos, clergy and laity who have not learned to play nice, etc.).

We can forthrightly avow our intent to remain in full communion with Canterbury and the other members of the Anglican Communion. However, even as TEC is responsible for its choices, so the Archbishop of Canterbury, the various Anglican Communion structures, and the individual Anglican provinces are each responsible for their choices. If one or more of those entities chooses to “punish” or impair communion with TEC, TEC should recognize that the decision and responsibility for it belong to those who made the decision and not to TEC. TEC, as far as I can discern, remains broadly and strongly committed to traditional, “big tent” Anglicanism and the historic understanding of the Anglican Communion as Churches in voluntary, non-authoritarian non-hierarchical communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury. When other entities strive to manipulate TEC with ultimatums, threats, or blame, those groups exhibit behaviors that egregiously deviate from how Jesus treated people.

George Clifford, a priest in the Diocese of North Carolina, served as a Navy chaplain for twenty-four years, is now a visiting professor of ethics and public policy at the Naval Postgraduate School, and blogs at Ethical Musings.

By James R. Mathes

The Rt. Rev. Mark Lawrence wrote the essay, “A Conservationist among Lumberjacks,” in The Living Church, published online on October 1, 2010, which attempts to paint the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina as a protector of the Constitution of the Episcopal Church.

It is true that there are no new plots.

What Bishop Lawrence postulates is simply a twenty-first century reprisal of the 1828 nullification crisis in which the state of South Carolina attempted to nullify federal tariffs.

Bishop Lawrence feigns great sorrow at the changing landscape of the Episcopal Church. He writes, “I have grown sad from walking among the stumps of what was once a noble old-growth Episcopalian grove in the forest of Catholic Christianity.” Donning the mantle of ecclesial conservationist, Bishop Lawrence even quotes environmentalist, Aldo Leopold, “a conservationist is one who is humbly aware that with each stroke [of the ax] he is writing his signature on the face of his land.” The bishop adds, “far too many leaders in our church have never learned this lesson.” Indeed.

All of this is prelude to his main premise that the presiding bishop is threatening the polity of the Episcopal Church. He wants you to believe that the threat is manifested in three ways: because her chancellor has retained a South Carolina attorney to represent the wider Episcopal Church’s interests should they diverge from the Diocese of South Carolina’s interests; through the Title IV revisions from the 2009 General Convention; and by the manner in which the House of Bishops has dealt with bishops who have left the Episcopal Church.

If Bishop Lawrence were simply presenting these thoughts to spur debate about his concern regarding the polity of the Episcopal Church and his perceptions of threats to the same, I could imagine he and I having a lively conversation, perhaps when we next meet at House of Bishops. He might even convince me to support changes in the canons to preserve our polity. However I suspect that that is not what Bishop Lawrence is after. His essay is rather an attempt to justify resolutions being considered this weekend at the Convention of the Diocese of South Carolina, which among other things, claims “sovereignty” of diocese. He tips his hand in his essay when he claims that “the presiding bishop and her unelected chancellor [are] intruding into diocesan independence.”

An Episcopal diocese is no more independent of the Episcopal Church than a state is independent of the federal government. This is nothing short of an attempt to craft ecclesiastical nullification. And of late, we have had too much practice in that with four other dioceses claiming nullification on the road to secession.

Bishop Lawrence’s thinking is problematic.

First, there is no real threat from the presiding bishop unless you attempt secession, in which case she will simply do her job of preserving the diocese from those who choose to abandon it.

The Title IV revisions, while not perfect, are an effort to shift from a disciplinary model to a pastoral model of dealing with clergy conduct issues. There is no external threat to a diocese from the presiding bishop. In fact, due process is enhanced. I would invite Bishop Lawrence and the Diocese of South Carolina to join the wider Episcopal Church in living with these canonical changes and to offer changes at future General Conventions. This is the right way to deal with perceived imperfections.

And it is rather silly to raise procedural objections to Bob Duncan’s deposition. While I believe we followed our canonical procedures properly, Duncan’s previously prepared departure to the Southern Cone immediately acted upon and announced moments after his deposition made it clear that the House made the appropriate decision.

Indeed, what’s the complaint? Bob Duncan and the House of Bishops were in perfect agreement: he was no longer a bishop in the Episcopal Church. The issue for Duncan was that his deposition gravely weakened his flimsy legal position relative to his compliance with an out of court settlement relating to Episcopal Church property. As Bishop Lawrence and the Diocese of South Carolina prepare to move forward with their own canonical changes, I fear they may be playing a similar game.

Bishop Lawrence: be at peace. Your colleagues in our House of Bishops support you in leading the Diocese of South Carolina consonant with its particular theological perspective. We grieve with you those who have left the Episcopal Church. But know this -- no one cut them out. They were not the victims of lumberjacks; they uprooted themselves. We pray that you will not do the same. It would be a regrettable repeat of history. In the end, we will wait for your next move. Please don’t fire on Fort Sumter.

The Rt. Rev. James R. Mathes is Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of San Diego.

By Jane Redmont

The only thing that makes the Church endurable is that it is somehow the Body of Christ and that on this we are fed.
--Flannery O’Connor

Dear Anne Rice,

I heard you on NPR on Monday. I had already read about your highly publicized declaration that you had “quit being a Christian.”

I understand rage at the church’s injustices, external and internal. As the saying goes, if Jesus were still in his grave, he’d be turning over in it, seeing what we have made of him and his message.

The problem is, you can’t do the Jesus thing alone.

There are plenty of reasons for leaving the church, any church. Common life is messy. Institutions are messed up, and I am using polite language. It’s not just individuals who sin. There are, as Catholic social teaching and liberation theologies have noted, sinful structures and systems. Religious institutions can be even more disappointing than others because we expect them somehow to be better, untainted by the dirt of daily life; instead we find that they are, like all the rest, “seared with trade; bleared, smeared,” as the Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins would say. Dorothee Soelle, the German Protestant theologian and activist, wrote a combination of poem and creed that spoke of her belief in Jesus and admitted:
every day I am afraid
that he died in vain
because he is buried in our churches

I’m not saying there are no good reasons for leaving the Catholic Church. I left it myself for the Episcopal Church nearly a decade ago, after a long discernment. I hope that I emigrated with some integrity along with my lifelong vocation to ordained ministry. I remain in affectionate contact with my former church home; I didn’t leave in a huff. On the other hand, many friends of mine did, and I empathized. I wept with them and felt their anger: lesbian and gay friends claiming the full humanity that is rightfully theirs, women called to ordained ministry, parents wanting to raise children in a tradition with less overt hierarchy and more freedom of inquiry, adults of all genders and sexual orientations wounded sexually, psychically, and sometimes spiritually.

I also have friends who stayed, members of warm, life-giving Catholic parishes, sustained by the rich prayer traditions of their church, by its sacramental life, by its work with the most poor among us and its social analysis of the causes of their poverty, by the church’s universality, its strong intellectual and theological traditions, and its diversity. They too include people of all genders and sexual orientations with good hearts, good heads on their shoulders, and a passion for justice.

I even have friends who converted to Catholicism, some recently, some long ago as I did in my early twenties after a humanist upbringing. In fact, there has been so much traffic in both directions that a couple of decades ago, when I wrote a book on Catholic women based on interviews around the U.S., I had to include a chapter called “Why They Leave and Why They Stay.”

I understand the commitment to Christ of which you spoke on your Facebook page, where you first told the world of your departure from the church. Those of us who have had our doubts and struggles (and any adult Christian who says she hasn’t is probably lying) know that even in the times of emptiness and discouragement and anger, there comes a moment when we throw up our hands and say, as a disciple did long ago, “To whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”

The thing is, the only way any of us knows about Jesus and those words of life, the way that we know about Jesus’ actions, the way that we know about the life Jesus breathed into those whom he encountered and continues to encounter, is from Christian communities. They are the ones, first the eyewitnesses, then their descendants, who told and retold the story of Jesus’ suffering and sorrow, his death by torture, and his resurrection. They are the ones who carried his wisdom sayings in their hearts and forward into the generations. They are the ones who testified to the healings, the changed lives, the rising of hope. The reason we have the story and the memory and thus the presence of Christ is because of, well, the church. With the Holy Spirit, of course. But the Spirit had to work through those humans. Us. Christians. Christianity. In many forms, some of them unsavory, some of them life-saving.

As for the earliest community of the friends of Jesus, let’s not idealize it. It had major problems. The betrayer of Jesus is repeatedly referred to in the Gospels as “one of the Twelve,” as if to remind the remaining friends, to their shame, that betrayal and abandonment existed among them. It was one of us who did this: perhaps any of us could have. Jesus’ friends fell asleep the night he prayed and sweated blood and prepared to die. The one who ended up, the story tells us, as the “rock” on which Jesus said the church would stand, was Peter. That’s Peter the bumbling one who never ‘got it,’ more impetuous than wise, and in the time between the dying and the rising, a denier of the long months of friendship and accompaniment. How’s that for a group of best buddies?

And then there were the women, the other best friends, whom an already patriarchal church could not erase from the story because they were too central to it. Did I mention patriarchy as one of the church’s ongoing little problems? The women did not run from the site of torture and death and they ran early, despite their fear, to the tomb. One of them, Mary of Magdala, faithful to the end, preacher of new beginnings, was the first witness to the Resurrection according to the official accounts, the ones the men approved as part of the canon. There were, off course, other gospels that got left off the list; in one of them, Mary of Magdala is a major actor. And what about Martha, who made the same profession of faith as Peter, naming Jesus as Messiah, Lord, Son of God? Peter, after his confession, is promised the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Where are Martha’s keys? (The question is not original to me. I first read it in the works of Edwina Gateley, English Catholic writer and founder of Chicago’s Genesis House for women involved in prostitution.)

If only the message came to us pure and not through the filters of flawed communities. Alas: no flawed communities, no gospels.

I’m glad you still have your faith, Anne Rice. Or perhaps it has you. When you pray, alone in your room, you will still draw on the presence and power of the Communion of Saints, that vast expanse of witnesses across the entire geography and history of Christianity, the community of the friends of Jesus.

Who handed down the faith that is still yours? Who made the prayers? Oops – it was the church. Does that mean you’re going to stop saying the prayers, singing the songs, remembering the saints and their desire to walk in the footsteps and spirit of Jesus? And the Nicene Creed, the one that speaks in 4th century language the orthodox faith that you hold? It was developed in messy councils at Nicea and Constantinople. Those councils were summoned by emperors, by the way: talk about lack of boundaries between religious and secular! I know that has been one of the most distressing issues for you, especially recently.

I’m not writing to urge you back into the Catholic Church. Nor to enter the United Church of Christ, some of whose members have already made a Facebook page urging you to join up. Nor even to lure you into the Episcopal Church, my dear and frequently fractious home, which, I am duty bound to remind you, welcomes you. People have been falling all over themselves and each other with come-hither invitations since you made your announcement. There are also communities that don’t engage in much overt outreach but may offer you a welcome. The Orthodox Church: ancient faith, beautiful spirituality, Eucharistic liturgy, no Pope. The Society of Friends (Quakers): no Eucharist but the sacrament of silence and a long tradition of "testimonies” of integrity, simplicity, and justice. Or the other places some find church: Twelve-Step groups, women’s liturgy gatherings in living-rooms, meditation societies. But the last thing you need is another splashy move. Besides which, the Catholic theological tradition, as you know, has taught for centuries something called the primacy of conscience. You have a conscience and, you told the world on Facebook, you listened to it.

What I am writing to tell you is that there’s no such creature as a lone follower of Jesus. You can’t be a Jesus-person away in a corner. Even hermits pray in communion with a larger tradition, a church beyond themselves in a world which is the place where God becomes incarnate.

The world: that’s why Jesus showed up. That’s why we are church. I’m with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the pastor and theologian whom the Nazis killed for resisting Hitler and the Third Reich. He wrote: “The church is the church only when it exists for others.”

I want the church to meddle in the world just as God meddled in the world and invited us along. As I understand the Good News (not every Christian agrees with me, as you noted in your mention of some Catholic bishops’ donations to anti-gay-marriage groups) this meddling need not and should not involve the breaking down of the wall between church and state, nor should it mean funding bigotry. On the other hand, I am all for meddling in the way churches in the U.S. served as bases for the Civil Rights Movement and produced its major leaders. Or the way my sister and brother Episcopalians, along with religious believers and leaders from many communities -- Catholics, Jews, Evangelicals, Muslims, Buddhists, Unitarian Universalists – protested and prayed in public in Arizona the day SB 1070 went into effect. And yes, the way some (as you point out, not all) Christians and other religious people are speaking up to remind their neighbors that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender persons are fully human and fully worthy of God’s love and of equal rights and protection under the law.

I am all for meddling in the way some churches in South Africa spoke out against apartheid, the deadly and dehumanizing system that other churches were helping to sustain and justify. The Christians weren’t just on one side. In fact, we may often be on the side of the losers. There’s this little passage in the Beatitudes about being persecuted in the cause of right. It happens. It hurts. Sometimes it even kills. “I think Christ didn't promise us victory,” Dorothee Soelle said about 25 years ago in a conversation with South African anti-apartheid churchman Beyers Naudé. “Christ promised us life, and that includes death…We hope to win… we give our blood and our lives... but I think we cannot understand our own struggle in terms of success and non-success.”

This is where the religious rubber meets the road: in the struggle for life, among the most vulnerable, when out of faith we give of ourselves and risk our reputations and sometimes our lives.

This Christ you believe in, Anne Rice, where do you meet him? He doesn’t only live in your head and heart, or in the Eucharist you told us you will miss so deeply, or in the scriptures that are our legacy from the early churches. We meet Christ every day in others, especially in what Mother Teresa called “the distressing disguise of the poor.” Dorothy Day, co-founder of the Catholic Worker, knew and lived this also, but she went a step further than her co-religionist in analyzing the causes of poverty, the deadly rush to war that robs the poor even when we are only preparing for military battle and not waging it, the love of possessions and power above the respect for the dignity of humans all made in the image of God.

One thing that being an adult Catholic for a quarter of a century taught me was not to confuse the church, any church, with its hierarchy. I still think it’s a good idea not to do so, and I belong to a church with some pretty cool hierarchs. I owe my having become an Anglican and an Episcopalian to some of them. But with several shining exceptions, many in my own church and some in others, they are not the folks who keep me a Christian on the days when the bureaucracy (not the same thing as the hierarchy, only sometimes) is concerned only with preserving and perpetuating itself. Along with those shining bishops and other leaders are the holy people and the resisters, many of whom were and are the same folks. If I began a litany of their names, we would still be praying an hour from now.

Those people are the ones whose names we will never hear in the formal litany of the saints at Easter or at ordinations, even in the most inclusive of churches, because they are not religious celebrities: they are the congregations to which I have belonged, both before and after joining the Episcopal church, whose members and pastors I know I can trust with my life; they are the motley group of Catholic Workers, Episcopal Peace Fellowship members, Quakers, Franciscans, and others with whom in my Bay Area days I demonstrated every Good Friday at Livermore Labs, which designs weapons of mass destruction in the suburbs of San Francisco; they are communities of theologians, artists, and activist friends in faith.

Those people also include groups of Christ-followers I barely know, like the congregation that got our bishop’s annual award a couple of years ago for the work it has done with persons in its community who are poor and suffering and grieving: a tiny church of unpretentious, quiet, steady Christian people whose goodness was written so clearly on their faces that it made me weep; or the congregation of Latino and Latina immigrants I recently visited whose members have built a playground and planted trees on their small plot of land in a neighborhood where there isn’t much green, who put on a great feast to celebrate their new vicar, and who run a monthly food pantry with the help of an interfaith food project because they know there is always someone more hungry than they.

I wish you well, sister in Christ. You’re a friend of Jesus; so am I. We’re in the same boat. It’s called the Body of Christ. I hope that some part of it will continue to nourish you. Call it the church, call it communion, call it a meeting, call it solidarity, call it what you want. It won’t go away.

Jane Carol Redmont is the author of Generous Lives: American Catholic Women Today and When in Doubt, Sing: Prayer in Daily Life. She is a professor of religious studies and women’s studies at Guilford College and a member and former chair of the Bishop’s Committee for Racial Justice and Reconciliation in the Diocese of North Carolina. She blogs at Acts of Hope.

Summer hours continue. Daily Episcopalian will publish every other day this week.

By George Clifford

This spring, President Obama faced what commentators described as a difficult choice: should he fire General Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. general in charge of the fighting in Afghanistan? On the one hand, McChrystal had good working relationships with Afghan government leaders, a high profile role in shaping and leading the war, and his troops had confidence in his leadership. On the other hand, McChrystal publicly expressed contempt for senior political appointees in the Obama administration.

Military personnel owe their seniors honest advice, especially when the senior solicits an opinion or the subordinate fills a key leadership role. Theoretically, the military chain of command that stretches from the newest recruit to the President welcomes timely advice, even dissent, appropriately expressed. Timeliness requires communicating advice before the leader makes a decision; appropriate expression involves communicating that advice in a way that will not embarrass the boss. McChrystal’s opinions voiced in Michael Hastings’ The Runaway General (Rolling Stone, June 22, 2010) failed both tests.

Obama acted decisively yet not vindictively. He accepted McChrystal’s resignation and then graciously allowed the general to retire at his four star rank.

What can the Anglican Communion and the Episcopal Church (TEC) learn about leadership from this incident?

Globally, the Anglican Communion, a lose federation of Churches in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury, has no official “party line” or “chain of command.” The Anglican Covenant’s premise that no member of the Communion should act without consulting the other members seeks to impose new conformity on Communion members, stifling independent action. If the Anglican Communion were to adopt the current draft of the Covenant, the Communion would severely limit the freedom of the Episcopal Church to follow God's call to practice a radical hospitality that welcomes and fully includes all.

Hoping that (1) the Covenant will die a bureaucratic death, (2) lengthy discursive and approval processes preceding adoption will produce a more acceptable amended Covenant, or (3) keeping a low profile will cause less gnashing of teeth among conservatives and temper their firm resolve to impose their will on the Communion are all naïve miscalculations. Instead, TEC and other, sympathetic Anglican Communion members need to model forthrightness by openly characterizing the proposed Covenant for what it is: an attempt to transform the Anglican Communion into a hierarchical body that enforces an un-Anglican conformity. TEC, like loyal military personnel, best fulfills its duty to Christ by courageously and loyally declaring its discernment of God’s leading.

Rumors of the Very Rev. Jeffrey John, Dean of St. Albans cathedral, nomination as the Church of England’s next Bishop of Southwark posed an interesting dilemma for the Archbishop of Canterbury. John, when nominated in 2003 as area Bishop for Reading, faced a torrent of conservative opposition. Unlike Bishops Robinson and Glasspool who live openly and fully with their partners, John, though partnered in a civil union, claims he is celibate. Short of constant video surveillance, nobody can verify that; I have no reason to doubt John’s honesty but find myself skeptical. Archbishop Williams felt sufficient pressure from the opposition that he spent six hours convincing John to withdraw his acceptance of the nomination as area Bishop for Reading.

The rumor prompted some Church of England conservatives to declare that if John were consecrated they would affiliate with another Anglican province. This barefaced ultimatum reflects the disunity that exists in both the Church of England and the Anglican Communion. Meanwhile, the British press reports that Archbishop Williams, angered by the leak from a supposedly confidential nominating process, has averred that he will not respond to coercive pressure. I’m enough of a cynic to wonder if the Archbishop isn’t secretly delighted with the leak because it effectively derailed John’s nomination without forcing Canterbury to take a no-win public stance for or against the nomination. Clearly, the Archbishop has not acted with the type of decisive and principled courage that Obama exemplified in dealing with McChrystal.

Nationally and in its dioceses, TEC needs to hold its own leaders accountable. Loyalty to TEC is a non-negotiable, sine qua non for leaders, clerical and lay. Loyalty does not necessitate agreement. TEC is a church that prays together using the forms established in the Book of Common Prayer without pretending that beliefs conform to any norm or fall within a particular set of parameters. Loyalty, however, does preclude both attempting to sow dissatisfaction or disenchantment with TEC as an institution and encouraging people or organizational structures to disaffiliate from TEC.

TEC has too often practiced a false kindness by tolerating active disloyalty rather than appropriately challenging disloyal behavior among its clergy and lay leaders. Actively disloyal individuals have decided to abandon TEC, a decision evident in actions if not in words, regardless of any protestations to the contrary. Disaffected dissidents who try to cling to structures or relationships that they believe they own misunderstand the concept of connectional Church that TEC incarnates. Furthermore, the actively disloyal manifest a lack of personal integrity, maintaining an affiliation with an institution that they believe has abandoned or significantly compromised its Christian identity or witness.

Addressing issues of disloyalty should proceed in a firm yet caring rather than vindictive manner; witch hunts and revenge have no place in Christ's Church. By addressing their lack of integrity in a timely, direct manner, TEC may actually help some of the disloyal to move toward improved spiritual health through greater integrity.

Concomitantly, TEC should continue to make room for the truly undecided as they discern whether they can in good conscience remain a part of TEC. This space should have no time or other artificial limits imposed. The one necessary boundary is that the undecided refrain from actively promoting disloyalty to TEC through words or actions.

Locally, clergy, wardens, vestry members, and other opinion makers must lead. In the 1970s, seminary instruction emphasized facilitation rather than leadership. Facilitation belongs in ecclesial tool kits. But leadership is even more important. A leader leads his/her followers toward actualizing the leader’s vision.

Pressures for leaders to sit on the sidelines, soft-pedal their views, or capitulate to the opposition certainly exist. A priest, for example, whose congregation splits over an issue may soon face a drastic reduction in stipend or unemployment with little probability of soon receiving another call. Emotional pressure on a leader may be more subtle but at least as powerful as economic pressure.

Instead of tolerating disloyalty, TEC should encourage loyalty. TEC, bishops, diocesan staff, elected leaders, and peers can proactively support clergy and laity working to keep people and parishes loyal. Support might include funding, spiritual or psychological counsel, outplacement options, public declarations of support, leadership training, etc. As I have previously argued in this forum, people are far more vital to the Church than is property. The Church will reap the largest dividends for Christ by investing its scarce resources in supporting its leaders battling to preserve and enhance loyalty to TEC.

General Convention 2009 resolutions and the consecration the Rt. Rev. Mary Glasspool in 2010 clearly indicate TEC’s present course. Now is not the time for waffling. Most TEC lay and clerical leaders, as well as many leaders in other Anglican Communion provinces, whether they agree with TEC’s direction or not, demonstrate their loyalty to Christ and fidelity to the Anglican way through visionary leadership that promotes proclaiming the kingdom of God, healing the sick, reconciling the estranged, and liberating the captive. The rest of us need to emulate their example.

The Rev. Dr. George Clifford, Diocese of North Carolina, served as a Navy chaplain for twenty-four years. He serves as priest in charge at the Church of the Nativity in Raleigh, is a visiting professor of ethics at the Naval Postgraduate School, and blogs at Ethical Musings.

Daily Episcopalian will publish every other day this week.

By Bill Carroll

(Note: All parenthetical references in the text are to Thomas Merton's Thoughts in Solitude)

For a while now, I have been working out an analysis of Thoughts in Solitude, Thomas Merton’s short spiritual classic, in terms of what he has to say about poverty and humility. It occurs to me that one of the subtexts of the longer paper I intend to write is a need for spiritual leadership in the churches of the Anglican Communion. I think it might be worthwhile to address this theme more explicitly in a shorter piece for a slightly different audience.

Thoughts in Solitude was written at a time when Merton was granted leave by his superiors to live in solitude for an extended period. In this work, he finds himself grappling with the relationship between the individual and the community. As he does so, he helps us to ground insights familiar to many of us from family systems theory more deeply in our life in Christ. Paying attention to what Merton has to say about the life of a poor and humble solitary before God may teach us how to be more fully ourselves as we seek the highest degree of communion possible with others.

Merton’s analysis of humility unmasks the spiritual violence behind recent exhortations to “stand in a crucified place” or to sacrifice our conscience for the sake of the perceived good order of the Anglican Communion. Life in Christ does involve deep immersion in the paschal mystery. What is more, a stripping away of the illusions of the false self, including pride and self-centeredness, is necessary for genuine Christian community. In the opening words of the first chapter, Merton contrasts true and false ways of participating in Christ’s life-giving death:

There is no greater disaster in the spiritual life than to be immersed in unreality, for life is maintained and nourished in us by our vital relation with realities outside and above us. When our life feeds on unreality, it must starve. It must therefore die. There is no greater misery than to mistake this fruitless death for the true, fruitful and sacrificial “death” by which we enter into life. The death by which we enter into life is not an escape from reality but a complete gift of ourselves which involves a total commitment to reality. (3)

Merton does believe that dying with Christ involves self-conquest and self-surrender. The self as we know it is a false self, deeply implicated in sin, illusion, and “unreality.” And yet true self-conquest (like the Church’s communion of love, which it makes possible) is not something we can manufacture for ourselves:

“Real self-conquest is the conquest of ourselves not by ourselves but by the Holy Spirit. Self-conquest is really self-surrender. Yet before we can surrender ourselves we must become ourselves. For no one can give up what he does not possess.” (18)

True self-conquest involves a form of self-love:

To love our nothingness we must love everything in us that the proud man loves when he loves himself. But we must love it all for exactly the opposite reason. To love our nothingness we must love ourselves. But the proud man loves himself because he thinks he is worthy of love and respect and veneration for his own sake. Because he thinks he must be loved by God and man. Because he thinks he is more worthy to be honored and loved and reverenced than all other men. The humble man also loves himself, and seeks to be loved and honored, not because love and honor are due to him but because they are not due to him. He seeks to be loved by the mercy of God. He begs to be loved and helped by the liberality of his fellow men. Knowing that he has nothing he also knows that he needs everything and he is not afraid to beg for what he needs and to get it where he can. (35-36)

To love oneself with the love of a humble person does not mean that we love only the self as it is before the fall (or in glory). It means to love ourselves as we actually are, acknowledging our faults, struggling against them, and handing over what we cannot handle to the inexhaustible mercy of Christ. We do so, realizing that there are some fights we cannot win and that even our ability to struggle is contingent on God’s creative gift. To love ourselves with a humble love is to accept, radically, that we are poor and needy creatures—and fallen ones at that. And it is to accept our humanness as it is and not as we would have it be, so that we might place ourselves, as we truly are, in the hands of the living God: “It is necessary that I be human and remain human in order that the Cross of Christ be not made void. Jesus died not for the angels but for men.” (129)

How do we treat one another, if we adopt this posture before God and neighbor? First and foremost, we discipline our tongue (and our actions), especially when provoked. From the New Testament letter of James onward (there are precedents in the Old Testament Wisdom literature), the unbridled tongue has been seen as a profound danger in the Christian life, a threat to the charity that ought to prevail among us After the fall, our language can obscure reality as much as disclose it. Indeed, although the task of naming was given in Paradise as a means of reverence and gratitude, it can be perverted into an act of violence. Merton notes the different roles played by words in prayer and magic: “Prayer uses words to reverence beings in God. Magic uses words to violate the silence and the sanctity of beings by treating them as if they could be torn away from God, possessed, and vilely abused, before the face of His silence.” (64)

Merton also contrasts the speech proper to pride and humility: “It is not speaking that breaks our silence, but the anxiety to be heard. The words of the proud man impose silence on all others, so that he alone may be heard. The humble man speaks only in order to be spoken to. The humble man asks nothing but an alms, then waits and listens.” (89)

It would be a profound misunderstanding of Merton’s teaching, however, to think that this implies passivity on the part of the humble person: “Humility is a virtue, not a neurosis. It sets us free to act virtuously, to serve God and to know Him. Therefore true humility can never really inhibit any really virtuous action, nor can it prevent us from fulfilling ourselves by doing the will of God.” (58)

Now, it seems to me (of course I could be wrong), that recent controversial actions of the Episcopal Church are the result of a long and careful discernment of God’s will in community. Like all discernment, this is ongoing, but its fundamental direction is unlikely to be reversed. As such, this represents a real breakthrough for us as a church, grounded in many breakthroughs of a similar kind in the lives of some of our members. For some of these members, this has been a matter of life and death, certainly a matter of personal integrity and truthfulness. Given this discernment, the actions we have taken (first steps toward Church-wide liturgies for blessing same sex unions; consecration of duly elected bishops living in such unions) seem to us to be not just permissible but morally required. Humility, therefore, cannot inhibit us from taking these steps.

Humility does, however, call us to perpetual self-examination and repentance before God and deep reverence before our brothers and sisters, all of whom are sacraments of the Gospel. At the present, for a variety of reasons, some continue to make a contrary discernment to our own. As sinners redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, this ought to give us pause. When we speak with our brothers and sisters about these matters, we should not do so out of an anxiety to be heard. Nothing we say to each other should come from a desire to dominate or control our neighbor or to manage the outcome of our conversation. We should speak and listen with deep awareness of the many ways in which our perspective is distorted by sin and self-serving illusions. In particular, many of us speak from a position of relative affluence and power, rooted in sinful structures absolutely opposed to the Reign of God. We should speak only in order to be spoken to, with a genuine fraternal desire for instruction and correction if need be, but not in such a way that we fail to discharge our moral obligations to our LGBT brothers and sisters, in any part of the world, or to the truth as we have come to know it in Christ Jesus. We should speak simply and clearly whatever God gives us to say, and then trust God for the rest.

Filled with a sense of our own lowly status, as fallen yet beloved creatures of God, perhaps we can renounce quick institutional fixes and learn what it means to live together as brothers and sisters in knit together by the Holy Spirit in the bonds of charity. At the heart of this lies the forgiveness of sins and mutual forbearance, for whatever virtues we have are fleeting—and, in any event, are ours only by the mercies of God. In the end, as Merton observes:

We must love the poverty of others as Jesus loves it. We must see them with the eyes of His own compassion. But we cannot have true compassion on others unless we are willing to accept pity and receive forgiveness for our own sins. (26)

The Rev. Dr. R. William Carroll is rector of the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd in Athens, Ohio. He received his Ph.D. in Christian theology from the University of Chicago Divinity School. His sermons appear on his parish blog. He also blogs at Living the Gospel. He is a member of the Third Order of the Society of Saint Francis.

By Donald Schell

The first time I saw a woman in a clerical collar, I had just completed my first year of seminary - summer of 1969. I recall that moment in the restaurant, glancing up to see a group of three or four people waiting for a table and noticing a man in a collar and then this woman.

I flinched and looked away and then, as if compelled, glanced up again. My stomach clenched. Those body responses won’t allow me to deny that my being, body and soul, so far as I knew either, responded with instant fear and disgust. I don’t remember feeling angry, just threatened and forced to acknowledge an impending loss.

I had just completed a year of Princeton Seminary as a Presbyterian. I was transferring to General Seminary to begin studies for Episcopal priesthood. At twenty two I thought I’d found the answer I was looking for in a church that combined honest inquiry and what I judged to be catholic practice.

I knew ‘Protestants’ ordained women, and this woman had to be one of ‘them’ because my new tribe didn’t ordain women. . .yet. But seeing her, I felt myself witnessing handwriting on the wall.

A couple of years later, my confessor and spiritual director, Br. Paul Wessinger, SSJE, a priest whose catholic credentials I trusted completely, said to me, ‘Donald, I don’t see that it will unchurch the church. Maybe the Spirit is up to something here. We’d better prepare ourselves to learn.’ I thank God for Paul’s timely words. (And I know he meant to include himself in the learning.)

Today I thank God for the women clergy who have proven some of my wisest and best colleagues. And I remember Br. Paul’s word of wisdom with deep gratitude. He opened something for me, an invitation to watch what was happening and listen to my experience with a more open heart. He helped me welcome the Spirit and accept the gift of new colleagues.
“When the Spirit of truth comes, S/He will guide you into all truth.”

So, I confidently say, in this the Spirit was up to something much, much bigger than my small, tidy interpretation of catholicity or history, and it’s useful to remember being so wholeheartedly wrong.

I take some pride in being a person who likes to learn, actually loves to learn. In that pride, Jesus’ promise in John’s Gospel that the Spirit will guide us into all truth feels exhilarating. Sometimes it’s harder to remember that pain and fear are also part of learning. Why is that so? Because learning demands unlearning. Each new and richer piece of provisional knowledge (‘now we know in part’) costs letting go of a previous, cherished, and possibly provisionally useful bit of provisional ‘knowledge.’ The way of learning is a way of Not Knowing, venturing, as St. Paul tells us, beyond any knowledge that passes away, and into love. Ouch.

While I’m at it, let me add another embarrassing confession to recalling my horror at seeing a woman in a collar. This one comes from a year or so later. For a class in apologetics at General Seminary, a classmate was polling his fellow seminarians opinions about the legitimacy of gay men (remember we weren’t ordaining women yet) among the clergy. Blithely and confidently I wrote that I saw no obstacle to a gay man being ordained as long as he either chose to get married (obviously, I meant ‘to a woman’) or was celibate - ouch again.

I knew some of my fellow seminarians at General were gay, but only a vague idea of who they were, and it didn’t occur to me that the guy taking this poll was working something through for himself. And at the time I would have been surprised to learn that my friend and fellow student Gene Robinson was struggling with questions like those in the questionnaire.
“The Spirit of truth will guide you into all truth.”

How many Anglicans around the world have stories like these? How many such stories are still unfolding?

Like the first Christians have to make peace with a Spirit who broke free of circumcision and kosher laws to do a new thing, we’ve had to let go of church and the faith (as we thought we knew them) to embark on a journey of uncertainty. Traveling in the Spirit’s company, we know less than we once thought. The steadier knowledge is that we ARE learning (sometimes at least) to welcome the disconcerting, disorienting blast of the Spirit’s mighty wind (or gentle breeze coming when we least expect it and from the ‘wrong’ direction).

Looking at the sweep of that Holy Wind over the last seventy years, I have to think the Spirit either trusts us astonishingly or is very, very impatient with us. We’ve been challenged to a lot of change. We’re in at least a third generations of unlearning in order to learn, of not knowing, for the sake of love. Consider this chronology:

1944 ordination of Li Tim Oi, first woman priest in the Anglican communion, a scandal that Archbishop William Temple tried to hide or undo, but Hong Kong was too far from Canterbury.

1950’s the weekly ‘parish Eucharist’ and ‘coffee hour’ hints at something deeper in the suburban expansion of the church across America.

1967 Liturgy of the Lord’s Supper launches twelve years of Trial Use and at least two decades of Anglican churches around the world discovering unity (or not) in shape and form of locally distinct liturgies.

1970 General Convention permits admitting unconfirmed children and adults to communion, a step toward the reforms the drafters of new liturgies were working for – restoring Baptism as full and complete incorporation into the Body of Christ

1974 Retired bishops ordain eleven women to the priesthood in Philadelphia (ahead of General Convention canonical authorization).

1976 General Convention authorizes ordination of women

1976 The Proposed Book of Common Prayer declares the Eucharist “the principle act of Christian worship on the Lord’s Day and other major feast” (borrowing this language from the Presbyterian Book of Order).

1977 Paul Moore ordains out lesbian deacon Ellen Barrett a priest.

1978 Lambeth Conference accepts ordination of women as a province-by-province option – for a moment acknowledging that change and discovery happen in different ways in different places and on the Spirit’s unpredictable timetable.

1981 St. Gregory’s Church, San Francisco formalizes an explicit invitation of ALL to communion, “Jesus welcomes everyone to his Table, so we offer communion to everyone…”
1989 Massachusetts ordains Barbara Harris their Bishop Suffragan, first woman bishop in the Anglican Communion.

1989 Penny Jamieson ordained bishop of Dunedin (New Zealand), first woman diocesan bishop in the Anglican Communion.

2004 Gene Robinson is ordained the first openly gay bishop in the Anglican Communion.

2010 Mary Glasspool is ordained the first openly lesbian bishop in the Anglican Communion.

I don’t expect all our readers would make the same chronology. We might argue about some of the pieces, and I’ve deliberately left off most of the push-back, the moments of protest and attempting to undo what it looks like the Spirit’s doing in all this. Here’s a simple and important example of pushback:

1971 House of Bishops asks that children be instructed in the ‘meaning of the sacrament’ before first communion.

In that time when my gut tied in a knot at the Spirit’s work raising up women for leadership and I accidentally and naively marginalized a seminary classmate, I stumbled on Henry David Thoreau’s lovely saying, ‘In wildness is the preservation of the world.’ And I started to get (still learning this I know) that the Spirit that blows where it will is the wildest thing of all.

What would my younger self have thought when, twelve years after I was ordained an Episcopal priest, I had the privilege of being invited by the Presbytery where I’d grown up, to join Presbyterian colleagues ordaining my mother or when, twenty years after that, Bishop Otis Charles and Felipe Paris asked me to preside at their relationship blessing?

“The Spirit will lead you into all truth,” so our path will always be unlearning in order to see the bigger truth. But the chronology (like other startling discoveries the church has made over the past two millennia) keeps hinting at two things: that we are seeing the fulfillment of the prophet’s promise, ‘I will pour out my Spirit on all humanity,’ and that, as Gregory of Nyssa said so plainly sixteen centuries ago, ‘The Body of Christ is all humanity.”

The Rev. Donald Schell, founder of St. Gregory of Nyssa Church in San Francisco, is
President of All Saints Company.

By George Clifford

A February item reported at the Episcopal Café’s Lead intrigues me: Methodist Church in the UK to go out of existence? The Rev. David Gamble, President of the U.K.’s Methodist Conference said that he was willing to end the separate status of the Methodist Church for the sake of the “Kingdom.”

From a sociological perspective, the Episcopal Church (TEC) has suffered both a striking numerical loss in membership (almost 30%) and an even larger decline as a percentage of the nation’s population (almost 60%). In 1960, TEC had 2.9 million members, equaling 1.6% of the U.S. population. Forty-eight years later, TEC had fewer than 2.06 million members, or only 0.65% of the U.S. population.

From an organizational perspective, TEC struggles with declining revenues. For example, the national Church budget for the 2010-2012 triennium is $23 million smaller than for 2007-2009. The current recession, especially for entities such as TEC that are heavily dependent upon endowment income, has accentuated financial difficulties. Underlying the recession, the real cause is declining membership.

Less obvious although pervasive, a huge proportion of TEC’s revenue and fixed assets yield small returns in congregations whose primary organizational focus is survival. The median average Sunday attendance in TEC congregations was 69 in 2008, continuing a long-term decline. My point is not that small congregations are of less value than large congregations are, but that small congregations necessarily devote a far greater percentage of their resources to maintaining their physical plant than do large congregations. In fact, keeping the building open and maintained often consumes such a large portion of available revenue that insufficient funds remain to pay clergy adequately, let alone fund ministry and mission programs. The building, instead of being a means to an end, becomes the congregation’s de facto raison d’être.

These are not newly identified problems. Richard Kew and Roger White wrote about these dismaying trends in their 1992 New Millennium, New Church and 1997 Toward 2015: A Church Odyssey. Numerous articles, blogs, and speakers have all addressed the same concerns. Yet the downward trends persist, perhaps even accelerating in spite of the earnest efforts to reverse them by many individuals and Church organizations.

So … what if we think the unthinkable? What if we followed the lead of the Rev. Gamble, President of the U.K. Methodist Conference, and wonder whether TEC should go out of business – for God's sake?

Rather than immediately react with a heartfelt, uncompromising negative couched in expletives, pause for a couple of moments to reflect on some realities and possibilities instead of the impossibilities. First, fifty years from now the church in the United States (its worship, community, structure, facilities, and leadership) will almost certainly look vastly different than today’s church. The shift away from the way of being church that I personally cherish is already underway. In the last couple of decades, thousands of mostly non-denominational congregations, many with rapidly growing membership and diverse patterns of being church, have emerged. Living in denial benefits neither God nor the growing non-Christian majority. Pro-actively adapting to a rapidly changing context and constituency will afford the church more leeway in defining and shaping its identity and form than reactively struggling to survive.

Second, TEC is not alone in facing these challenges. Other Churches – the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the United Methodist Church, the Presbyterian Church (USA), and the United Church of Christ to name a few – have experienced similar, large declines and face parallelchallenges. While not wanting to underestimate differences in ethos, liturgy, polity, and theology that divide these Churches, the substantial commonalities between various Christian denominations dwarf those differences in contrast to the competing forces of secularism, new age spirituality, and eastern religions. Businesses that pro-actively respond to changing markets and merge from strength tend to thrive. Businesses that react to market changes and merge in an effort to survive rarely recover.

Third, the real work of the Church – becoming God's people by striving to increase the love of God and neighbor – occurs primarily in local congregations. A dismayingly small and decreasing percentage of diocesan, provincial, and national expenditures supports missions and ministries that would not happen if left to local parishes. Endorsing and supporting chaplains for federal ministries (military, Veterans Affairs, and prisons) is an example of one such ministry. Much of the work of Episcopal Relief and Development is another example. Instead, most of what happens at the diocesan and national levels is “overhead,” essential as a means to an end but not, per se, why the Church exists. Bishops, for example, perform critical tasks teaching, confirming, ordaining, organizing and deploying ministries but those instrumental tasks support the life and work of local congregations. As much as I love and appreciate my bishop, my parish does not exist to support him. Similarly, most diocesan and national staff offices exist as a means to support the life and ministry of local congregations.

Imagine … several small, geographically adjacent congregations of various Churches laying aside their idolatry of buildings and accoutrements to unite as the people of God, worshiping in homes, served by a single member of the clergy, and using their consolidated resources to engage in expanded ministry and mission.

Imagine … large and medium size, geographically adjacent congregations sharing a single physical plant while retaining their distinct identities, cooperating in diverse projects that might include feeding the hungry, offering different styles of worship, establishing an institute for lay spiritual formation, etc.

Imagine … seminaries and judicatory staffs of different denominations consolidating to reduce expenses on physical plant and internal administration while better serving their constituent congregations.

In 1991, while on the staff of the Navy Chief of Chaplains, I conducted a feasibility study for consolidating the Navy, Army, and Air Force Chaplain Schools into a single school. I concluded that consolidation would save as much as 35% in operating costs per annum, provide a more comprehensive program, better prepare chaplains to function in the joint environment predicted to become the norm for military operations, and still permit each service to meet its unique needs. The Chief of Chaplains rejected my recommendations. Neither the Navy nor the other services wanted to surrender control of any aspect of their programs. Several years ago, budget constraints and the new standard of joint operations forced the three chaplain schools to consolidate.

Over the last century, the pace of social change has accelerated and will most likely continue accelerating. We Episcopalians, with our emphasis on incarnational theology, should recognize that the Church, the incarnated body of Christ, is no more immutable than is a human body. Indeed, the Church remains faithful to its call as the intentional community of God's people only by adapting to changes in the larger society.

Visions of the future Church vary greatly. I proffer my intentionally provocative imaginings as a catalyst for further creativity. Nobody has urim and thummim (or even the twenty-first century equivalent, a reliable computer model) with which to discern the future. Furthermore, I’m far from sanguine about the prospects for any unified body that might emerge if several American denominations unexpectedly achieved organic unity in the next few years. I’m also mindful that most of the ecumenical movement’s twentieth century momentum foundered on doctrinal and structural shoals. On the other hand, I know that staying the present course will only lead to continuing declines. (Remember the definition of stupidity: repeatedly performing the same actions, each time expecting a different result.)

Genuine renewal requires new wineskins. Ethos, liturgy, polity, and theology are all part of the wineskin, human efforts to savor and to communicate God's ineffable, transcendent love manifested in the Christ. Change necessarily entails conflict. Out of creative, well-managed conflict over the church’s future new wineskins will emerge from which the next generation can drink deeply of God's timeless and unconditional life-giving love.

The Rev. Dr. George Clifford, Diocese of North Carolina, served as a Navy chaplain for twenty-four years He taught philosophy at the U. S. Naval Academy and ethics at the Postgraduate School. He serves as priest in charge at the Church of the Nativity in Raleigh and blogs at Ethical Musings (http://blog.ethicalmusings.com/).

By W. Christopher Evans

An on-line mentor of mine and of many, Dr. Louie Crew, was recently asked a rather odd question, “Who is the temporal head of The Episcopal Church?” The question implies still again a swoop-in understanding of Jesus Christ’s presence, as if Jesus Christ somehow goes absent (rather than often hidden) in the interim or interregnum outside of word proclaimed from the pulpit or sacrament presented at the altar, something like John Mason Neal’s infamous first stanza:

Christ is gone up; yet ere he passed
from earth, in heaven to reign,
he formed one holy Church to last
till he should come again.

On the contrary, by word proclaimed, as bread and wine, and I would add, in psalms sung, we again encounter the terrifying, liberating news that everywhere and always Jesus Christ is present, presence, and Lord. By the power of the Holy Spirit and Christ’s own promises, Jesus does not ever leave us behind—ever. Our own Eucharistic prayers remind us of this again and again:

“Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again” (BCP, 363).

All hinges on that little word “is” as Zwingli’s and Luther’s own battles remind us. Christ is risen! Not in the past. Not merely in the future. By sheer Self-gift, here and now, Christ is risen, taking into God’s own life once-for-all by means of himself flesh, matter, creation. Is risen declares, Jesus overcomes, reigns, and makes himself anywhere and everywhere to be present and explicitly available in psalms, by word, and as bread and wine—and among sisters and brothers called to praise and proclaim his Name. But nowhere is creation not his own. This is, after all, the creation which he himself speaks, no sings, into existence.

Our “peculiar realized eschatology” (F. D. Maurice) or “inaugurated eschatology” (Arthur Just) or eucharistic eschatology (myself) stands in radical contrast to and rejection of the popular End Times christologies of Left Behind and similar series. God in Christ never goes absent to swoop in at the End and clean up the mass by seeming hatred of that which he has made. Rather, Christ is our beginning, our principle, our end who never lets us go—this is the heart of the Reformers’ rebuke in justification by grace through faith in Christ Jesus. Nowhere is this care more obvious than in the lines from Wisdom 11:24 in our Ash Wednesday Collect: “Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have made and forgive the sins of all who are penitent” (BCP, 217).

That much of American Protestantism has devolved into a degenerate Zwinglianism should not let us absent this radical reminder of Christ’s lordership here and now and always and everywhere. “Christ will come again” is not merely future promise of Consummation, but present promise fulfilled in psalms sung, by word proclaimed, and as bread and wine—and among we who are his own Body sent forth to live it. And just the same, by a creation always being sung into existence. Nowhere can we not turn and not be surprised to find declaration of our Lord Christ’s reign and presence. And though our Lord Christ remains often hidden, we should not think him not speaking or absent. See the Sparrow. The Ant. The Raven. The foreigner. The widow. The orphan.

So, when I hear this question then, I want to respond, “How we try to wriggle our way out of being subject to and disciples of Christ.” For my answer to this question is this: The spiritual and temporal Head of The Episcopal Church is our Lord Jesus Christ.

F. D. Maurice made much of Christ’s headship. Christ’s headship not only implies oversight and rule, but constitutive and creative power. This is the Lord who speaks us into existence and redeems that same existence in each and every moment. This is the Lord of whom we are members bodily by Holy Baptism—and, Maurice would remind us, God’s own from the moment of our creation, despite all appearances to the contrary. Baptism into Christ in Maurice’s, as with his mentor Luther’s, christology is not a one-time event, but our true and only and ever-present reality, stance, hope, and only ontology always and everywhere. We are God’s own to whom God in Christ has come once-for-all. Having received ourselves anew from God by death into and life in our Lord Christ through life-giving waters, live it. Live as the children of God we are created to be “from the beginning” and when “God began to create.” No, in all things, creation, redemption, life, death, Jesus Christ is Lord.

While a division of spiritual and temporal may be meant to properly divide Creator and creature, by doing so in this fashion, it undermines the Resurrection and comes close to denial of the Ascension. By taking flesh into the heavenlies, God in Christ will never let his creation go, but indeed, takes creation into Godsself for once and always:

Almighty God, whose blessed Son our Savior Jesus Christ ascended far above all heavens that he might fill all things: Mercifully give us faith to perceive that, according to his promise, he abides with his Church on earth, even to the end of the ages; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen (BCP, 226).

We should expect to encounter a Who, Lancelot Andrewes tells us, our Lord Christ, wherever two or three are called together in psalms sung, by word proclaimed, and as bread and wine. And not only there, but in all of creation, for it is this same Lord Word who speaks all, this same Lord Wisdom who “orderest all things mightily” for us though the Evil One gnashes and we follow suit. Both of time and eternity, Jesus Christ is Lord!

What a spiritual and temporal division of Christ’s lordship also suggests is somehow matters of flesh and blood are of lesser or no concern to God than those matters spiritual. The Incarnation and the Crucifixion tell us contrary-wise. Matters of flesh and blood precisely reveal the Spirit or not. Division of body and soul and spirit in this manner is unbiblical. We are persons bodily. The Resurrection of our Lord reminds us that we will not be so, that is, persons without a body, changed though we may be. Flesh matters. Matter matters. God pitches God’s tent among us in our Lord Christ.

Both in matters spiritual and matters temporal then, indeed in all things, Jesus Christ is Head of the Church. We Episcopalians, as Bishop John Skinner of Scotland preaches to us at our inception and constitution as a Church, will be non-established:

Hence it is evident that the church as constituted by Christ, must be allowed to be independent on the state, or these apostles must be considered as guilty of disobedience and sedition. And the succeeding bishops, for the first three hundred years after Christ, must lie under the same charge: for they held religious assemblies, governed their clergy and people, and executed all other parts of their sacred function, not only without leave from the state, but very often in direct opposition to it. (John Skinner, “The Nature and Extent of the Apostolical Commission, A Sermon Preached at the Consecration of the Right Reverend Dr Samuel Seabury, Bishop of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut, by a Bishop of the Episcopal Church in Scotland.).

Our Deputies in General Convention, our bishops, all are, but they never stand in Christ’s stead. We have no vicar of Christ. No one stands in Christ’s place. Rather as our priests present to us, each of us as creatures of God’s singing, as members of Christ’s own Body redeemed point to and profess and proclaim and bless our one Lord in all things. Any power, authority, governance we have rests in him or stands not at all. And not just us, for our Lord Christ is not only Head of the Church, he is Head of All Creation. William Stringfellow reminds us again and again that nowhere is the Word not speaking and present and active in working to bring all into conformity by redemption to God’s will. This world and the world are God’s in Christ Jesus despite all appearances, despite our denials, despite our not knowing, despite our sins, despite our open rebellion. This is what we, Christ’s own Body are called to profess and proclaim and most importantly, hymn: “Jesus Christ is Lord!” By those four words as creed, empires have been brought to their knees and oppressions made to cease, by them we laud Christ as head and only and blessed: Holy, holy, holy.

Dr. Christopher Evans recently completed a Ph.D. in Liturgical Studies and Church History at the Graduate Theological Union. He offers occasional musings on the Rule of St. Benedict, liturgical questions, and life as a Benedictine oblate at Contemplative Vernacular

By Ann Fontaine

Andrew Sullivan, writing on The Atlantic's Web site, has been praising the Episcopal Church for its actions on priests who commit sexual abuse, exploitation and harassment. In the comments on his column stories of quick action following the reporting of abuse have appeared. It is good to hear that our system is working for some people who have suffered at the hands of priests and bishops. I wish it had always been the case, but we have our own history of the abuse of power, secrecy, and denial. It was not until the ’70s and ’80s that these abuses were finally addressed by the Church and the General Convention began work on revising the canons and to encourage dioceses to provide procedures and training.

Women clergy began to hear the stories of child and youth sexual abuse by clergy in the late '70s and early '80s. Women had only been ordained since 1974. A few women across the denomination met to compare notes. In the meantime, lawsuits were beginning to emerge when the church would not respond to the suffering. The insurance companies were getting worried about providing liability insurance when churches knew about abuse and passed a priest on to another place. While I was serving on the Executive Council from 1985-91, Ellen Cooke, Treasurer of the denomination, reported to the Presiding Bishop and the Council that something needed to be done both for pastoral and fiduciary reasons.

General Convention began to act. In 1985, a resolution passed to request dioceses to conduct workshops on recognizing child sexual abuse. In 1991, a Committee on Sexual Exploitation was established. During this period several women clergy and some attorneys who had been providing legal counsel for abuse victims/survivors developed training for bishops and other leaders to teach the church about the issue and how to deal with perpetrators and victims/survivors. It was clear that TEC did not have canons or procedures to guide this work, so several of us proposed a resolution for the next General Convention.

The bishops did not think the time was right for this action but we pressed ahead. The women of the Episcopal Church – Episcopal Women’s Caucus, Episcopal Church Women, Daughters of the King, and others – mobilized to lobby both Houses and to talk to their bishops about the importance of immediate action by the church. Abuse victims/survivors came to testify, often the first time they had told their stories in public. 1997 saw a number of resolutions including the revision of Title IV (disciplinary canons) passed. (The history of resolutions is here.) The Bishop’s Pastoral Office led by the Rt. Rev. Harold (Hoppy) Hopkins was a key supporter of funding, education, developing training and facing the issues of abuses and exploitation.

In 2009 another revision of the Title IV canons was passed to set up a procedure that is more like the professional standards of conduct in other professions. The original revisions were based on the Military Code of Justice that while providing a way to deal with abuse and exploitation had proved very difficult to use.

Since the days of these early cases the work to stop abuse in the Episcopal Church has had a mixed record. In my work as a member of committees proposing and acting on guidelines for action and as a advocate for those who have suffered abuse and exploitation, I see the Episcopal Church is currently doing much better work but with areas that are still lacking.

Stopping child sexual abuse has the greatest success. Safeguarding God’s Children training is required of all clergy and all lay leaders especially anyone in the church working with children and youth. Congregations and parents are more aware of how to spot abuse and who to contact if it occurs. Church schools are vigilant about contact with children, requiring 2 adults present, windows in all offices, locking spaces where abuse might occur, and doing background checks on all employees and volunteers. Many dioceses are using online self-guided training and awareness programs which have increased participation 10 to 100 fold over the face to face training. We know that perpetrators will not stop abuse from taking training but the community can become vigilant and prevent incidents. Compliance is left to the dioceses to enforce but most have strict guidelines.

Exploitation of vulnerable adults and harassment has a more mixed success rate. Much depends on the local diocese and requirements for response and discipline. Although the canons are in place, it is often a hard road to get the canons enforced. Rather than viewing events as abuse of power, they are confused with “affairs” or the victim is blamed for the occurrence. Egregious, multiple offenses are usually dealt with eventually but justice is slow to be found for these abuses. Most professions realize that the person in power has the responsibility in any relationship – regardless of actions. The church is beginning to understand this. The discipline of bishops is the least successful area in the church.

The new revisions of the canons hold out the possibility that the procedures will be more available and easier to use with offending priests and deacons in dioceses. The canons have more options before taking the case to court. Child abuse, of course, must be reported to the police or county authorities by civil law. Training in adult exploitation and harassment is now available for congregations and dioceses. The Episcopal Church has learned that a church that faces abuse and exploitation promptly and with justice, restoration, and reconciliation can be a healthier safer place for all.

The Rev. Ann Fontaine, Diocese of Wyoming, keeps what the tide brings in. She is the author of Streams of Mercy: a meditative commentary on the Bible.

By Derek Olsen

It’s now the week after the tumultuous weekend when three bishops were elected, one of whom—as we all know by now—is a lesbian with a long-time partner. During the day I’ve been like many, going about my work and, on breaks and lunch, checking the Anglican blogs and news sources to see the on-going reaction. According to my analysis we’ve moved through the “News and Reaction” phase and are now well within the “Retort and Counter-Retort” phase. To read the blogs, it appears that Christianity teeters on the brink—they just can’t agree on which direction lies the clear light of truth and which the fires of hell.

It’s now later and I sit once again at my computer. The official day’s work has been put away and I now work at a different project, coding old documents into XML. Before me on the screen is one similar in nature to the ones before my eyes during the day; it’s a sermon from an English priest to his people.

Before my eyes even light upon the words, the difference is clear, though; no 24-hour news cycle ever produced this. In the enhanced jpeg image of the page, I can see the faint trace of where a leatherworker’s knife slipped in scraping the hair from the leather. A faint shadow betrays a spot where more pumice-rubbing was needed. A line of pricked holes on either side of the written column provide guides where, a thousand years before, a scribe dragged a dry-point to line the parchment page. The scribe is now dust, but his marks remain.

The consents must come—no wait—the consents must *not* come or else the faith will be in peril. Christianity must change or die—no wait—Christianity must not change lest it die. And the shrill blog voices recede as I follow the flowing marks of the scribe’s pen. On a Tuesday afternoon in the early summer ten centuries past, an English abbot reminded his gathered congregation (Was it large? Was it small?) of the meaning of the Lord’s Prayer:

And se man ðe gode gecwemð he bið godes bearn. na gecyndelice ac þurh gesceapenysse…
And the man who pleases God, he is God’s son—not according to kind but through creation and through good deeds as Christ said in his Gospel: “The one who works the will of my Father in heaven, that one is my brother and my mother and my sister.” Now therefore all Christian men whether high ranking or lowly, nobly-born or not, the lord and the slave: all of them are brothers, and all of them have one Father who is in heaven. The wealthy is not better in this reckoning than the poor. As boldly may the slave call God his Father as the king.

This is a faith I recognize. Is it now in danger of dying away? I think of the many misfortunes this manuscript has seen—viking raids, the Norman conquest, the Black Death, the dissolution of monasteries and dismemberment of books, the Civil War, the Blitz. Each generation may fear the worst. This English preacher himself thought that the viking raids besieging England’s green and pleasant land were the harbingers of the Antichrist. Even then the questions were complicated and not clear cut. Placate the raiders with soft gold, or meet their charge with a sterner metal? Come April 19th we’ll remember an Archbishop of Canterbury—Alphege—who faced the hard questions of this time and wrote an answer for history with his own blood.

Đæt oðer gebed is. Adueniat regnum tuum. þæt is on urum gereorde. cume þin rice; The second prayer is “Adveniat regnum tuum” which is in our tongue “Thy kingdom come.” Ever was God's kingdom, and ever will be: but it is so to be understood, that his kingdom be over us, and he reign in us, and that we with all obedience be subject to him, and that our kingdom be realized and granted to us, as Christ has promised to us, that he would give us an eternal kingdom.

Thy kingdom come. But God’s kingdom is eternal, reminds the preacher—treading the same well-worn path of Origen, Cyprian and Augustine, the path that Luther would follow in another five hundred years—we pray that it may come in us, to us, and through us. An Advent reminder that our lives and choices are bound in the works and will of God should we so offer them. As this Advent wears on and wends its way towards both the Birth and the Last Judgment we wonder which will have the upper hand.

A small hole in the margin alerts me that sometime in these passing centuries some worm has itself read, marked, learned, and inwardly digested these silently witnessing pages.

The sermon ends where it began. Starting with themes of brotherhood and unity, the sermon makes a final return before burning out in a doxological blaze:

Crist gesette þis gebed. and swa beleac mid feawum wordum. þæt ealle ure neoda…
Christ established this prayer and so enclosed it in a few words, that all of our needs—both spiritual and bodily—are included there. This prayer he established for all Christians in common. He does not say in this prayer, “My Father who is in heaven…” but says, “Our Father…” and so forth; all of the words that follow after are spoken in common by all Christians. This shows how much God loves unity and concord among his people. According to the book of God all Christians should be so gathered together that they be as one Man; woe, then, to the man who breaks that unity.

The unity envisioned in this sermon, though, is no uniformity enforced by covenants but a harmony between the rich and poor. What does the rich man do when his servants no longer serve? Let the rich man be warned and remember that he must render an account of the good things given him. True Christian unity is expressed in how the members of the body act on behalf of one another, with diligence and love.

The shrill shortsightedness of partisan conflicts say one thing; the fading letters on parchment remind me of another. Endurance. Fidelity. Loving-kindness. These are the marks of the Church. They have been for a very long time. They will continue to be so for a very long time to come.

Dr. Derek Olsen recently finished his Ph.D. in New Testament at Emory University. He has taught seminary courses in biblical studies, preaching, and liturgics; he currently resides in Maryland. His reflections on life, liturgical spirituality, and being a Gen-X/Y dad appear at Haligweorc.

By George Clifford

Is the Episcopal Church (TEC) winning battles and losing the struggle against evil in its efforts to become a Church that truly welcomes everybody?

Recent court decisions in several states have affirmed that assets owned by parishes or dioceses that try to withdraw from TEC remain with TEC or one of its constituent parts. Progress towards reconstituting diocesan structures in Fort Worth, Pittsburgh, and elsewhere continues apace. Conversely, the weight of opinion, even in parishes staunchly loyal to and supportive of TEC, holds that blessing same-sex relationships, ordaining persons who openly live in committed same-sex relationships, and otherwise fully including everyone regardless of sexuality in the Church’s life will cost TEC members, mission momentum, and resources. Is TEC winning battles and losing the struggle against evil in its efforts to become a Church that truly welcomes everybody?

Phrasing that question posed substantial difficulties. No matter how strongly I believe that God desires to welcome every human, regardless of sexuality, fully, I know that this issue is not a litmus test of anyone’s Christian identity.

That said, opposition to the full inclusion of all people is not simply a matter of people of good will having honest differences of opinion. TEC certainly has members who hold a wide variety of opinions with respect to sexuality and sexual ethics. Diversity of opinion is real within most congregations and does not cause hard feelings, let alone collective angst. Diverse opinions, per se, are neither the source of the current conflict nor inherently evil. TEC welcomes and must continue to welcome people of every opinion.

The evil in this conflict has other roots. First, anyone treating views on sexuality or sexual ethics as a litmus test of who is or is not a Christian or of those with whom one can be in the same Church or parish wrongly assigns these issues a centrality unwarranted by either Scripture or tradition. Congregations that strive for uniformity of opinion with respect to sexuality and sexual ethics – whether within the congregation, the diocese, the national Church, or the Anglican Communion – do so because leadership pushes the issue. Such leaders reject the model of a good shepherd who left the 99 to search for the remaining one, a shepherd who strives to keep the flock together without insisting that all of the sheep look alike or behave alike. Good shepherd leadership affirms and honors diverse opinions and freedom of individual conscience, a defining hallmark among Anglicans whose unity results from common prayer rather than common belief. Leadership that intentionally seeks to divide the Church over an important but not ultimate issue is at best misguided and at worst evil.

Second, sexuality and sexual ethics galvanize opinion and motivate people to act with an energy that other issues lack. Opponents of full inclusion of all in the Church, if they engaged in open and honest mutual introspection, would find their allies subscribe to diverse opinions about the ordination of women, the authority of Scripture, lay presidency at the Eucharist, and other issues. The one and only issue uniting dissidents is their opposition to the full inclusion of all, regardless of sexuality, in the Church’s life. In other words, sexuality affords an unparalleled opportunity for emotional impact that translates into publicity, prominence, and fundraising. U.S. money raised from non-Episcopalians supports the disruptive pronouncements and divisive proselytizing missions of other Anglicans in the States (at the Episcopal Café cf. this story and this one). At best, such Anglican clerics are unintentional pawns manipulated by forces of evil; at worst, these Anglicans clerics co-conspire with forces of evil.

Lest that assessment seem too harsh, TEC represents less than 1% of the U.S. population. If TEC did not retain sufficient public interest (notoriety?) to attract considerable media attention, these non-Episcopalians would choose to wage their war over sexuality and sexuality on different “terrain.” For example, the United Church of Christ years ago decided to ordain clergy openly living in same-sex, committed relationships and to bless same-sex relationships without the large and continuing furor that TEC’s slow steps have attracted. Similarly, the recent decision by the larger Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, with which TEC shares ministry, to allow the ordination of clergy openly living in same-sex, committed relationships sparked a much smaller media barrage.

Concurrently, other Anglican provinces, such as the Anglican Church of Canada, have actually led the vanguard of the movement toward full inclusion of all in the life of the Church. TEC follows in the vanguard’s rear. Yet the preponderance of public attention nationally and internationally has focused on TEC. As with TEC, the U.S. represents the global target of choice. The United States’ status as the world’s lone superpower and the influence that its media, economy, and culture have on the rest of the world guarantee a higher profile controversy than if the fight occurred in another country or province. (For more information on this, cf. Globalizing the Culture Wars: US Conservatives, African Churches, & Homophobia by Anglican priest and scholar, the Revd Kapya Kaoma, featured in Pat Ashworth’s report, “Africans suffer from ‘collateral damage’ in U.S. culture clash", The Church Times, 20 November 2009.)

Consider the shibboleths that TEC blessing same-sex relationships will result in African animists choosing Islam over Christianity or the persecution of African Christians by radical Muslims. How many African animists really care, or even follow, U.S. ecclesiastical news? (Similarly, how many American Christians really care, or even follow, religious news from African tribal areas?) How many radical Muslims will cease to persecute Christians simply because TEC decides not to bless same-sex relationships? Those questions point to a third evil: opponents of fully including everyone in the Church’s life lie. Lying requires intent to deceive. Not every Episcopalian who repeats one of those shibboleths lies. However, the opposition’s leaders want victory in their campaign against homosexuality at any cost. They lie. Yet truth, not lying, is indicative of those aligned with God. The truth, not lies, makes us free.

Fourth, debates over sexuality and sexual ethics within parishes, dioceses, the national Church, and the Anglican Communion progress with multiple subtexts designed by and for various audiences. One of those subtexts speaks to the often-cherished, little thought through, possibility of the Anglican Communion reuniting with the Roman Catholic Church. Pope Benedict XVI contributed to that subtext with his recent establishment of personal ordinariates for Anglicans who wish to affiliate with Rome. A careful reading of the Roman Catholic document emphasizes that Rome offers no compromise or olive branch to its separated siblings. Anglicans are welcome, but only on Rome’s terms, conforming to Rome in all doctrinal matters. These include opposition to the ordination of women, recognition of the Pope as the supreme, earthly source of ecclesial authority, etc. The substantive differences between Anglicanism and Roman Catholicism are so great that welcoming all people, regardless of gender orientation, into the full life of the Church will not measurably broaden the chasm that already separates the two Churches. Pretending otherwise is at least naïve and in some cases a deceptive ploy to prevent TEC from welcoming all, i.e., another lie. For individuals who can no longer remain part of the Anglican Communion in good conscience, I wish them God speed as they move with integrity to the Roman Catholic Church.

Another subtext to the debates about sexuality and sexual ethics is that Episcopalians are not Anglicans. Effective communication requires that words have commonly agreed meanings. Anglicans are by longstanding definition members of those Churches in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury, i.e., TEC members in the United States. Splinter groups intentionally incorporating the word “Anglican” into their group’s name, such as the Anglican Church in North America, therefore constitute a pernicious effort to subvert the popular understanding of who is and who is not an Anglican in the hope of creating a new reality. Comments I hear from lay Episcopalians loyal to TEC suggest this tactic is working. Likewise, the Chair of the Presiding Bishops Council of Advice, the Rt. Rev. Clifton Daniels, Bishop of the Diocese of East Carolina, apparently has drawn a similar conclusion. He began a recent letter published in the New York Times by emphasizing that TEC is the sole Anglican presence in the U.S. (“Is This Bishop Catholic?” New York Times, November 17, 2009).

The reading from Baruch for the Second Sunday of Advent (5:1-9) recalls a people led into exile by their enemies who clung to the hope that God will bring them back to Jerusalem in glory with mercy and righteousness.

An older parishioner, now retired and with no family at home in my parish, spends her days and self in caring for others. She has fostered literally hundreds of children, some for a few days and others for months. Race, gender, handicaps, sexual and orientation are all irrelevant to her. Recently, she has daily driven an hour to and from a hospital to hold a shaken baby that is fighting for its life in the hospital’s ICU, selflessly investing love and emotion in this infant. One week she asked me for money from my discretionary fund to help a broken family pay its utility bills. The next week, she solicited Christmas gifts from the parish for four young children who live with their financially strapped grandmother to avoid the state sending them to foster homes. It seems that every time this woman and I chat, she is helping yet another person.

She incarnates the mercy and righteousness of which Baruch speaks. TEC must do the same. TEC could prevail in every court case no pending, and dozens not yet filed, and still be unfaithful. TEC could reconstitute and reorganize every diocese and parish that attempts to withdraw and still be unfaithful. Assets and organizational structures are at best means to an end, not an end in themselves. TEC must focus on ends and not means.

Righteousness necessitates TEC stand firmly for truth. TEC boldly moving ahead in developing rites for blessing same-sex relationships, teaching that permanent monogamy and not a couple’s gender composition exemplifies a wholesome lifestyle, and advocating equal civil rights for all regardless of gender orientation will position TEC squarely in the advent of God's activity in the world.

Mercy demands that TEC embrace and welcome all of God's children. TEC needs to regain its momentum as a Church fully engaged in God's mission: loving the unloved, feeding the hungry, offering the water of life to the thirsty, etc.

Mercy and righteousness are hard tasks, in part because we cannot delegate them to a hireling but must perform them ourselves. Often there are few if any tangible rewards. But in the end God's mercy and righteousness will prevail, God's people shall dwell in life abundant, and I, for one (along with my parishioner) want to be part of that scene.

The Rev. Dr. George Clifford, Diocese of North Carolina, served as a Navy chaplain for twenty-four years He taught philosophy at the U. S. Naval Academy and ethics at the Postgraduate School. He serves as priest in charge at the Church of the Nativity in Raleigh and blogs at Ethical Musings.

By George Clifford

In downtown San Francisco, an abandoned building has furniture, including a refrigerator, sofa, chair, and lamp, hanging out of windows and otherwise attached to the exterior. The building has stood that way for years, with colorful murals decorating the sheets of plywood placed around the ground level to keep people out. I do not know the building’s story, whether the perpetrator(s) intended it as an artistic statement or something else.

In any case, the building seems an apt metaphor for too many denominations and congregations. These churches leave some of the people who should be integral to their community hanging in limbo outside, superfluous except as a painful statement of the types of people that Christian group excludes.

Sadly, some churches even boast about the types of people whom they exclude. Intentionally excluding people contravenes Paul’s vision of the body of Christ as mutual interdependence in which no person, regardless of perceived externalities, is dispensable. Each and every person brings gifts to the body, enriching the membership, strengthening the community, and contributing to the incarnation of Christ's body in the world.

Healthy Christian communities regularly monitor themselves to identify the types of people whom they exclude, intentionally or unintentionally. In the past, most Christian communities excluded the physically challenged because buildings were not handicap accessible. People with mental challenges or behavioral control issues often exceeded (and still do in many places) a congregation’s tolerance for behavior outside conventional norms. Fear of contamination, as happened when the full magnitude of the HIV/AIDS problem first shattered public apathy two decades ago, erected new barriers to inclusion and thereby excluded some from Christian communities. Snobbishness, whether based on socio-economic status, perceived moral probity, or another factor, continues to bar some from admission in local Christian communities.

Each person is, as it were, a lump of clay in the potter’s hands, still being sculpted into the artistic and useful vessel the potter designed. Excluding people from the community not only impoverishes the community but also devalues the potter’s unfinished work as unworthy. Intolerance, from the right or from the left, has no place in Christian community. All people, no matter how personally repugnant I may find their views or behavior, are, like me, an unfinished vessel in the potter’s hands, still being sculpted into an artistic and useful creation.

Part of the historic Anglican genius has been our commitment to unity in the midst of diversity. Sometimes called “big tent Anglicanism,” this requires making room for those with a wide array of beliefs. Preventing the big tent from collapsing on top of those within it, stifling both their vibrancy and their ability to welcome others, requires humility, trust in the potter, and honoring our baptismal vow to respect the dignity and worth of all persons.

I’m thankful for the courageous stands that the Episcopal Church took at its 2009 General Convention. Having clarified who we are, and whose we are, now the harder work of lovingly living into that vision of inclusivity begins, a task in which we chart our direction and our progress with more difficulty. But even as the heat of a kiln is necessary to finish transforming clay into a useful and artistic vessel, so the heat of the hard work in the years ahead is necessary for us to incarnate fully God's loving embrace of all people.

The Rev. Dr. George Clifford, Diocese of North Carolina, served as a Navy chaplain for twenty-four years He taught philosophy at the U. S. Naval Academy and ethics at the Postgraduate School. He blogs at Ethical Musings.

By Gregory C. Syler

Sitting with Hemingway’s breakthrough classic, The Sun Also Rises, once again, I noticed what must have always been there, though I hardly saw it before: a robust catholicism; a “grand religion” no less vital to Spanish culture than to a few of the American ex-pats who tried to renew life, at least for a while, in a fictional summer. Read of protagonist Jake Barnes’ experience in the Bayonne cathedral, relishing the cool stone, awkwardly feasting in quiet prayer, soaking up time-honed sacredness of place.

Hemingway began to write it in those early years spent abroad with his wife and child. Bored and brooding as 1925’s summer turned to fall, he headed off by himself to Chartres, and found the ancient pilgrimage site an excellent place to refine the novel. Biographer Michael Reynolds notes: “Catholicism held for Hemingway a strong emotional attraction. It was the religion of the bullfighters and royalty, a religion of the streets and courts.”

Something there speaks to me. Not the watered-down cultural religiosity but the honest appraisal of what is in the Episcopal Church, as well, a catholic truth: If we take Jesus seriously, we’ll find ourselves singing, praying and eating with the rich and poor, the homeless and those with mortgage woes, the ones we’d like to vacation with and the ones we’d rather serve lunch to, behind the protected wall of a parish hall’s kitchen counter.

You see, I’m the rector of a small but increasingly vibrant Episcopal parish in St. Mary’s County. Not much happens where we live and worship in the village of Valley Lee, but an Anglican church has been here, continuously, since 1638. No modern church planter would start a congregation in this precise spot, because it doesn’t marry with the modern layout of roadways in southern Maryland, but St. George’s is a simple whitewashed building almost exactly halfway between the great manor houses nearby. Sure, this was a church for the landed gentry, but it also was a congregation for the folks who tilled the land and worked the waters, those who got up with the sun and rested when the day was done.

That’s something to be celebrated, a truly Christian community in which the wealthy and not-so-prosperous gathered around the same altar. Even today, long after the slave galleries were ripped out and the manor barons’ wealth all but dried up, St. Mary’s is a booming mix of U.S. Navy, military contractors, retirees and folks who can still trace their line to the founding of the colony. And they gather, still, around the same altar – those with doctorates and oversight of multimillion dollar defense contracts right next to those who learned from their grandparents how to stuff a ham and whose parents showed them how to catch rockfish according to native American customs.

To me, it’s both amazing and humbling because, like many, I chose the Episcopal Church as an adult Christian and (let’s be honest) many of us, myself included, relish that our church is a fairly elite group that still prides itself on how many U.S. Presidents we claim, how intellectually curious we can be, how upper-crust we still seem, and that Vanderbilt, Washington and Lee all count as members of our clan. As the relative wealth of colonial manor homes gave way to the contemporary wealth of Navy contracts down here, it’s refreshing to know that the Episcopal Church has, all along, also been founded on watermen and tobacco farmers, on honest, simple folks (myself most certainly included) as well as the elite; a “religion of the streets and courts.”

This also is refreshing, I should hope, to congregations in the Episcopal Church that don’t necessarily share the colonial heritage that quaint little St. George’s, Valley Lee does, for number-trackers continue to alarm faithful Episcopalians (and diocesan staffs) when they show the average attendance at an Episcopal church today as something like 70 folks on a Sunday morning and an increasingly aging population and, well, never mind the rest of the statistics but throw up your hands and cry “Oh, my, the ship really is sinking!”

If you look at it another way, however, you realize that a lot of church-folk in southern Maryland learned the lesson, long ago, that a church of 70 or so on a Sunday morning can still be the recipe for a pretty amazing Christian body, and they don’t have to come with deep pockets. In Valley Lee and other hamlets here, we are growing in spirit as well as in numbers, and we’re doing it through readily identifiable Christian work: education, outreach, worship and pastoral care; not just finding the next wealthy manor lord. We may not be the Upper Crust Church and, like others, our overall attendance may have slipped from previous decades, but we are still fairly successful Christian congregations who are passionately committed to reaching out in Jesus’ name.

Maybe numbers and size and average-education-level don’t matter so much as faithfulness and vibrancy. And maybe a new door is being opened for the Episcopal Church just as the old one is closing, slowly, decade after decade. Maybe congregations like “quaint little St. George’s” will become the model for the rest of us – that the rich faithfulness and robust quality of Christian faith matters, above all else, and those qualities can be found chiefly at those altars where the streets meet the courts.

The Rev. Greg Syler is rector of St. George’s Episcopal Church in Valley Lee, Md.

By Andrew Gerns

In the first of seven meetings around the Diocese of Albany, the Times-Union reports a statement by Bishop William Love that is very telling. He said that the militantly conservative stance of the diocesan leadership is justified because parishes that might have broken away from the Diocese (and the Episcopal Church) have not. Albany, he says, is in contact with "all of the Anglican Communion."

What part of the Anglican Communion is Albany in contact with that the rest of the Episcopal Church is not? Presumably provinces that have otherwise crossed-borders to “rescue” congregations from the oppression and heresy that they say is the Episcopal Church today. Maybe Albany is in contact with former Episcopalians who have formed their own denomination?

One hears out of this statement the idea that there may be another tack for conservative dioceses who are opposed to the ordination of gays and lesbians and see themselves as holding the line against interpretations of the Gospel that grieve them: a strategy of non-participation.

Bishop Mark Lawrence of South Carolina says that he is considering a position of withdrawal from participation in the Episcopal Church but not from the Church itself:

In our present situation some would counsel us that it is past time to cut our moorings from The Episcopal Church and take refuge in a harbor without the pluralism and false teachings that surround us in both the secular culture and within our Church; others speak to us of the need for patience, to “let the Instruments of Unity do their work”—that now is not yet the time to act. Still others seem paralyzed; though no less distressed than us by the developments within our Church, they seem to take a posture of insular denial of what is inexorably coming upon us all. While I have no immediate solution to the challenges we face—it is certainly neither a hasty departure nor a paralyzed passivity I counsel. Either of these I believe, regardless of what godly wisdom they may be for others, would be for us a false peace and a “fatal security” which in time (and brief at that) would only betray us. Others in their given circumstances must do what they believe God has called them to do.

Lawrence along with the Standing Committee of the proposes that the Diocesan Convention consider:

… a resolution … that this diocese begin withdrawing from all bodies of governance of TEC that have assented to actions contrary to Holy Scripture; the doctrine, discipline and worship of Christ as this church has received them; the resolutions of Lambeth which have expressed the mind of the Communion; the Book of Common Prayer (p.422-423) and the Constitution & Canons of TEC (Canon 18:1.2.b) until such bodies show a willingness to repent of such actions. Let no one think this is a denial of the vows a priest or bishop makes to participate in the councils of governance. This is not a flight into isolation; nor is it an abandonment of duty, but the protest of conscience.

Instead of attempting to remove the diocese from the Episcopal Church, Lawrence proposes non-participation as a “protest” using language that combines civil disobedience (we will do this until the Episcopal Church repents) and psychology (we are creating boundaries). What it really means is a decision to isolate.

This approach undercuts somewhat the claims of ACNA to be an Anglican Province because while it aides and abets the claim that the Episcopal Church has gone down the path of heresy and revision, it also understands that in this country a diocese can only be a member of the Anglican Communion through the Episcopal Church. It also assumes that ACNA is a separate denomination that is not in and of itself a successor to the Episcopal Church… a denomination that South Carolina will not join.

This approach is rather different from the position articulated by Bishop Edward Little of Northern Indiana who writes in Christianity Today:

Nor are our divisions as clear-cut as they may seem. It is not the case, in the Episcopal Church or in any other, that you've got believers on one side and heretics (or apostates) on the other. I know many in my church who love Jesus, confess him as Lord and Savior, believe the articles of the Christian faith as summarized in the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds, and seek to follow Jesus in costly ways—and who affirm the decisions of the 2003 General Convention. As a matter of principle, when people claim to be disciples of Jesus, I will treat them as brothers and sisters in Christ, Bishop Gene Robinson among them. He is not only a colleague; I count him as a friend and fellow pilgrim. I will commit myself to him and to them, even when I am convinced that they are wrong. I will seek to manifest a godly forbearance and ask that they do the same toward me.

On the contrary, Bishop Lawrence proposes a separation-without-leaving precisely because he sees the church as dividing up between believer and heretic. He sees the need to name and isolate the heresy he sees:

This calls for a bold response.” It is not in my opinion the right action for this diocese to retreat from a thorough engagement with this destructive “new” gospel. As the prophet Ezekiel was called by the Lord to be a Watchman, to sound the alarm of judgment—to warn Israel to turn from her wickedness and live. We are called to speak forthrightly to The Episcopal Church and others, but even more specifically to the thousands of everyday Episcopalians who do not yet know the fullness of this present cultural captivity of the Church. Clearly this is not about the virtue of being “excluding”; it is about being rightly discerning about what is morally and spiritually appropriate.

The idea that Lawrence is proposing (and I believe Love of Albany will also attempt) is to maintain just enough membership links to be considered apart of the Episcopal Church but no more.

The choice of non-participation recognizes that outright secession would not work: it would result in expensive and lengthy court battles, with the likely loss of their physical assets.

At the same time, it is still based on an understanding of the diocese as a more or less independent entity. To choose non-participation is to say, in effect, to the rest of us “I have no need of you.”

South Carolina and other Dioceses considering this course must tread carefully. To steer this course, their diocesan conventions must avoid passing provocative legislation claiming to renounce or interfere with the authority of General Convention or the Presiding Bishop. Their bishops must avoid saying words or doing actions that makes it appear as if they have renounced their orders in the Episcopal Church, such as preventing the visit of the PB to their diocese, unilaterally claiming another Primate as their own nor formally aligning with a foreign province in a way that creates a new denomination.

A non-participating diocese may develop partner relationships with other Anglican dioceses in the Communion (as many participating dioceses have done) and even sign on to some kind of Anglican Covenant, if one ever materializes, with or without the rest of the Episcopal Church. The fact that a lone signature on such a document may not mean anything either legally or globally is irrelevant, because it would symbolize where the non-participating diocese "stands."

If these dioceses choose the tack of non-participation without leaving then there may be little 815 or anyone else—including the moderates and progressives in their own dioceses—can do about this.

This approach does not mean that there would an absence of provocative actions or words. A bishop of a "non-participating" diocese might show up at an ACNA function, for example. But in itself, this means nothing. A Bishop showing up at an ACNA function may be no more significant than an Episcopal bishop showing up at a Lutheran or Roman Catholic or some ecumenical function. Bishops, clergy and lay-leaders may say harmful or hurtful things about the Episcopal Church in the press. This approach would not lessen the division nor promote dialogue, but it falls short of outright schism.

A non-participating diocese would not pay their "asking" nor give money to any Episcopal organization like ERD or ECW that they believed concurs with decisions of General Convention they don’t like. They would not send representatives to these groups nor participate in the committees of General Convention. This would be disappointing, but since The Episcopal Church has never linked participation to paying a fair share of the "asking" nor is participation on the councils of the church a prerequisite to anything, these actions would not by themselves constitute renunciation.

It would take a lot of fortitude to maintain a non-participating status. The leadership in such a diocese would have to be careful not to get to cocky or impulsive on the one hand, and to deal with a loneliness and self-imposed isolation on the other.

They would also choose to isolate themselves from the rest of the Episcopal Church that they have chosen not to leave: they would lose connection with moderate and moderate-t- conservative dioceses that remain participatory. They would attract to themselves clergy who are passionate for what could become a narrower and narrower view of the Gospel and they would squelch the voices and inquiry of laity who have a broader view of church and mission than their leaders. Doctrinal enforcement would become an issue that could further dampen a dynamic common life and mission. They might network with other non-participating dioceses but before long this would be like phone calls between silos. It would be hard to avoid become self-absorbed and parochial in such an environment.

This approach is not new. Three of the dioceses that attempted to leave for a new denomination with all their property and assets to another province—Fort Worth, San Joaquin and Quincy—also took a non-participating stance after the ordination of women. The Episcopal Church allowed this under a “conscience clause” but after three decades of non-participation, the leadership could no longer contain themselves nor hold the line and attempted to bolt. In Pittsburgh, non-participation led to a kind of myopia that assumed that their perspective was more widely held than it turned out to be. The lessons of these non-participating dioceses ought to provide a sobering example to South Carolina, Albany and others considering staying but not participating.

But as long as the Bishops shows up where they are (minimally) supposed to, and as long as their Standing Committees do the barest canonical essentials of their jobs, as long as the Diocese send deputies to General Convention, and as long as no Bishop, diocesan convention or parish says "I am no longer Episcopalian", then there is no reason to consider the bishop or diocese as having left the Episcopal Church.

Absent maybe, but not departed.

The Rev. Canon Andrew Gerns is the rector of Trinity Church, Easton, Pa., AND chair of the Evangelism Commission of the Diocese of Bethlehem. He keeps the blogs Andrew Plus and Share the Bread.

By Linda L. Grenz

A reading of press reports about the 76th General Convention might suggest the only topic debated (again) was sexuality – or, more precisely, homosexuality. Sometimes this happens simply because the press does not know much about our history or theology. Unfortunately that often means our members get misinfornmation about why this topic is relevant to our church and why we are devoting attention to it.

Our focus is on inclusion and this is not new – it is something we have been working on for decades. It grew out of the liturgical renewal movement that began to have a significant impact on the church in the early 20th century. The desire to renew the church's liturgy led scholars to re-examine the church's worship and theology. Their research and the discovery of previously unknown texts led liturgical scholars to re-vision how we worship.

Liturgical scholars realized the earliest Christians gathered around the dining room table and it is likely that the hosts presided. As membership grew and services became more formal, the order of priests was established to assist the bishop. This led to the clericalization of the liturgy as priests became more central to worship services and laity became mere observers.
The priest became the primary actor, the one who said the liturgy and did the ministry. The people become passive recipients. Their role was to “pay,” “pray” and not “say” much more than “amen” or “and also with you!”

As liturgical scholars began to re-shape the liturgy to make it more participatory, the roles of clergy and laity also changed. This change was driven by another aspect of the liturgical renewal movement – the re-visioning of baptismal theology. In the early church, baptism was a transformative rite of passage. In baptism, one died to one's old self and rose with Christ to a new life as a redeemed child of God. One’s baptism profoundly changed one, both now and for eternity.

As priests became the primary leader of the congregation, the bishop, who used to lead the congregation, had no connection to the local community. What would be the bishop's role? One response was to separate the anointing with oil from the rest of the baptismal liturgy. This led to the creation of Confirmation, and the development of a theology that one needed to “complete” one's baptism by being confirmed by the bishop. The liturgical renewal led the church to move baptism back to the center of the church's life (vs. a private ceremony) and to restore the anointing to the baptismal rite.

The 1979 Book of Common Prayer wholeheartedly embraced the re-visioned baptismal theology – and emphasized it by adding the five questions that spell out baptismal living after the Creed. Because we believe that how we pray shapes what we believe, it became a means of incorporating this baptismal theology into the life and practice of the church. Those five questions, in particular, led to theorization that baptism meant full inclusion which resulted in the church re-examining the role of laity, of people of color, of women and of children and youth.

The 1960s saw the church take significant steps to support and sometimes lead the effort to establish equal rights for blacks. In the church, blacks were elected to leadership roles.

Women in most dioceses began to serve on vestries in the 1950's and 60's. Laity began to read lessons and lead the prayers at the liturgy. The first women deputies to General Convention were seated in 1970 and girls began to serve as acolytes. The 1976 General Convention voted to permit the ordination of women as priests.

Meanwhile, throughout the 1980s and 90s, laity were appointed as Eucharistic Ministers, allowed to administer the chalice at the Eucharist and later to take the Eucharist to the sick and shut-ins. Children were allowed to receive the Eucharist as soon as they were baptized. Youth were appointed to vestries and given voice at diocesan conventions and at General Convention.

In 2003 the General Convention voted to confirm the election of an openly gay man by the Diocese of New Hampshire. It also engaged in a conversation about whether or how to bless the relationships between same sex couples.

Each of these changes was challenging to some members. Each time we changed the liturgy or the rules to include another group of people in a previously prohibited arena, we lost some members who could not reconcile that change with their theology. The latest focus on the inclusion of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people grows out of this long history of the church seeking to apply the baptismal theology that says that in baptism we are all transformed by Christ, becoming equal children of God. It is part of the church's long engagement in the spiritual practice of seeking to be the Body of Christ – the place where all the baptized are equally welcome.

One of the most moving experiences at General Convention was when some deputies and bishops joined the largely Hispanic group of Disney workers protesting Disney's plan to eliminate health care benefits for many of them. The largest march in Anaheim's history put the church on the side of those who are poor, often oppressed and living at the margins. But what was remarkable was that when Bishop Robinson, the gay bishop who is the focus of much of our talk about homosexuality, was introduced – the Disney workers burst into applause. It turns out they knew who he was and what he stood for – and they identified with him. You can bet that Episcopal churches in Anaheim are having lots of new Hispanic seekers coming, along with many of our congregations who are finding people who otherwise would not trust coming to church or who are at the margins of society, coming to us. The good news is that those souls are hearing: ALL are welcome at God's table. And that is worth the cost of struggling through all of these sometimes awkward or difficult changes.

The Rev. Linda L. Grenz is president of Leader Resources and priest-in-charge at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Silver Spring, Md. A version of this article appears in the September issue of Washington Window.

By Sam Candler

I can remember when I first grew defensive about being Southerner. I had not realized the common perception of Southerners as dim-witted recalcitrants, obsessed with racism and the Civil War, until I went to college in California. I was young, my friends were young; and it seemed to me that they had never met a Southerner in their lives. At my first dinner in the cafeteria, my new colleagues wanted only to hear me talk. They said they did not care what I said; they just wanted to hear me speak.

The next day, when I was politely learning names, as we love to do in the South, I met a woman who told me her name was Laurel. I politely asked what her last name was. She replied that it did not matter what her last name was. Well, of course, that was exactly when it did begin to matter to me. Was she embarrassed about it? I pressed her for a few minutes; maybe I was flirting. Finally, she admitted rather sheepishly, “It’s Sherman.” “What was so wrong with a name like Sherman?” I asked. She turned and queried, “Aren’t you from the South? …Sherman?”

So, I got it. She did not want to admit to me, a Southerner, that her last name was the same as that of the general who burned Atlanta. But I would not have made the connection unless she had supplied it. It was as if my new California friends supposed that Southerners travel the world with “Sherman” on their minds, carrying vengeance and surliness forever.

It was soon apparent to me that Southerners have a real advantage when we meet these misperceptions of racism and ignorance. When folks mistake a slow Southern accent for a slow mind, it is rather easy for the Southerner to win debates and arguments simply because he or she is underestimated. Of course, sometimes a slow mind is a good thing, too.

On racism, I still carry even more defensiveness. As a student in California, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, I encountered far more racism in those states than I had ever experienced growing up in Georgia. I had never seen the Ku Klux Klan march until I was in Connecticut. Most of the people who preferred to scapegoat the south as racist seemed to me to have no black friends themselves. I was amazed. In their minds, it was as if the South existed only as a place where they could deposit their racist projections and backward stereotypes. I know we deserve some of the perceptions, but the same accusations are certainly true in most other parts of the country, too. Again, when I was younger, it was rather easy for me to say only a mild positive thing on inter-racial matters and be instantly hailed as a progressive.

I like being a Southerner. I am proud of a region that retains something of courtesy and custom, tradition and heritage. I know we have sin in our past and in our present. We have grace and we have sin in the South. We have saints and we have idiots. Other regions of the world have the same, but we are especially proud of ours.

As a Southerner then, and as an Episcopal Christian, I especially appreciate August 18, which is the day we remember William Porcher DuBose. He was both a Southerner and an orthodox, progressive Christian thinker. He was someone who could be grounded in his region and culture and yet speak to the whole world. There is not space here to review his entire life and theological contribution; but the outlines are important. He was from South Carolina, and he attended the school that would later become the Citadel. Then he went to the University of Virginia. He fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War. Finally, he came to reside in Sewanee, Tennessee, teaching in the new religion department at the University of the South, which department would become the School of Theology.

At a time when Christianity was being threatened by Darwin and the new sciences, and when the Episcopal Church was divided internally between low church Protestant types and high church Catholic types, William Porcher DuBose provided a theology that resolved both those threats. He was not afraid of the theory of evolution; he claimed that evolution actually showed the divine to be working, creating, within the natural. He was not afraid of critical thinking and cultural progress. Furthermore, he was able to combine a deep evangelicalism with an Anglo-Catholic emphasis on sacrament.

Ultimately, he was not afraid of contradictions and opposites. Here is where I am especially fond of his contribution to the Anglican world. Our own times need to hear again what William Porcher Dubose says about church unity:

“Truth is not an individual thing; no one of us has all of it – even all of it that is known. Truth is a corporate possession, and the knowledge of it is a corporate process.” (from Turning Points in My Life (New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1912), p. 56, as quoted in Donald S. Armentrout, A DuBose Reader (University of the South, 1984) page xxvi).

“The one great lesson that must forerun and make ready the Christian unity of the future is this: that contraries do not necessarily contradict, nor need opposites always oppose. What we want is not to surrender or abolish our differences, but to unite and compose them. We need the truth of every variant opinion and the light from every opposite point of view. The least fragment is right in so far as it stands for a part of the truth.” (from The Gospel in the Gospels (New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1906) page ix, as quoted in Donald S. Armentrout, A DuBose Reader (University of the South, 1984), page xxvii).

I would believe these words no matter where the speaker came from; but I am especially glad they were written by a Southerner, William Porcher DuBose.

The South still has much to contribute to the Episcopal Church. In fact, the South has much to contribute from both its conservative and its liberal components. The South definitely has both. Our largest churches are usually large because they are able to contain both sides of most arguments, including the arguments that otherwise divide certain parts of the communion.

Some Canadian friends of mine were in Atlanta last Spring to attend my daughter’s wedding. On Sunday morning, they were amazed at the traffic on the street, especially in front of churches. “So many people go to church here!” they exclaimed, “There are hired policeman directing traffic in front of the churches!”

Yes, people go to church in the South. It is one of those customs and traditions that make us who we are. And at church, we have found both grace and sin; we have had communion with both saints and idiots. All that is our Christian community. We find who we are at church, and we also find the opposite of who we are. We learn, as William Porcher DuBose learned, that “contraries do not always contradict, and opposites need not oppose.” We are different from one another, and we are similar to one another; and we are all loved by God, in the ultimate truth of Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Very Rev. Sam Candler is dean of St. Philip's Cathedral in Atlanta. He chaired the House of Deputies' Committee on Prayerbook, Liturgy and Church Music at the General Convention. His sermons and reflections on “Good Faith and Common Good” can be found on the Cathedral web site.

By Marshall Scott

I’ve been told that I have an odd outlook on the world. Mostly, I attribute it to my astigmatism. However, I have to admit to taking some pleasure in some experiences that others don’t – like, crisis calls in the middle of the night. (Well, it’s part of the job; although as I age the weakening flesh is challenging the willing spirit.)

As an example, I find myself thinking about some obscure, less attended things that will in time turn out to be quite important. Maybe it comes from working in an environment where tiny things like viruses and bacteria make a big difference. Maybe it comes from the promise that faith in quantity like a mustard seed can yield blessings all out of proportion. Whatever it is, I have this conviction that little things that go unnoticed can make a big difference.

I’ve been continuing to think about General Convention. Like many a powerful and moving experience, it’s taking some time to process it all, and to appreciate the many things that happened there. I’ve written about coming away with a sense of hope, and that hope remains; but with a little time passed I’m beginning to appreciate some more subtle things that we did.

With everyone else, I’ve read and thought about and commented on what happened with the hot button issues. However, there was another resolution that has stayed with me. That resolution was A061, and these were the most significant points:

“Resolved, the House of Deputies concurring, That the 76th General Convention direct the Executive Council to create a Committee of Strategic Planning to guide the Executive Council and the Church Center in their capacities as leaders of The Episcopal Church; and be it further

Resolved, That the Committee on Strategic Planning be charged with using the best appropriate planning methods available to develop a ten-year plan, updated annually, that identifies and tracks the missional, financial, societal, cultural and other challenges and opportunities facing The Episcopal Church; considers alternative paths of action; recommends a path; defines measurable indicators of success of the selected direction and a specific timeline; details resources needed and proposes how those resources will be gathered;”

I’ll admit that this caught my attention in no small part because strategic planning is an important part of the world I work in. It’s getting to be that time again when we update our strategic planning goals as a preliminary step to preparing our budget (and yes, even the chaplain participates in strategic planning). However, as we get away from the excitement and begin to wonder what this will mean over time, I think this is may turn out to be one of the most important actions from this General Convention for the future of the Church.

While the rest of the world wondered how we would manage to care both for our GLBT siblings and our international Anglican siblings, at General Convention we spoke about mission. The Presiding Bishop reminded us that “Mission is our life” as a Church in a sermon that focused on the sending out of the disciples. In her sermon, she focused on traveling light; and at first blush a process of strategic planning might seem its antithesis. However, while the disciples were instructed to travel light, they were clear as to where to go and to what to do when they got there. Their goals were clear, and attainable. They weren’t asked to walk to Rome or even to Damascus, but only to the towns in their neighborhood. Their instructions were clear, but were also flexible. They had options for when they were welcomed and when they weren’t, and for being good guests regardless of the resources of their hosts.

As we seek to live out our mission, it would be great if our directions were so simple. However, our circumstances are different enough to really complicate matters. There are so many more of us. Our reach, our neighborhood, is so much wider. Our rate of travel is now measured in seconds, if you think of how fast a message can move.

At the same time, we find ourselves pressed to rethink how we’ve done things in the past and how we want to do things in the future. In Anaheim we spent almost as much time on the budget as we did on D025, and more than we did on C063. For that matter, we shed almost as many tears. Once the Triennial Budget had been introduced, we prayed at almost every legislative session for the staff of the Episcopal Church Center who would lose their jobs. We spent much less time discussing explicitly the Report of the Commission on the State of the Church, but it was mentioned often enough that we could not ignore how our numbers have faded. At the same time, we were also agreed that our relations with our Anglican siblings were in flux, even if we differed on how to respond.

With all these things in mind, I think some strategic planning is certainly called for. We are called to “mission;” but what is our mission? That is, how do we get specific about how we will live out the Gospel? More particularly, how do we get specific about how we will live out the Gospel as a Church? Among all the organs in the body of Christ, what is our particular part in God’s mission, and what special charism has God given us as a body for that purpose? How, then, can our servant leaders in Executive Council and the Episcopal Church Center exercise that charism for our particular mission? Each of us tends to consider our own vocational focus and project it on the General Convention and Executive Council as if the Episcopal Church as a body were simply one member or one group of members writ large. I don’t think that’s an adequate way to find our vocation as a whole Church.

We would normally speak of this as discernment, and not as strategic planning. That, however, is to miss seeing strategic planning for what it is: it is a tool. In fact it can be quite a good tool, and one that, if it’s modeled well by the Executive Council and Church Center staff, and done well at other levels, can help us not only discern but move forward.

And I think this resolution calls for the right characteristics in our strategic planning. To begin with, the first and primary focus called for is on “missional challenges and opportunities.” While it also calls for examining “financial, societal, cultural and other challenges and opportunities,” I think we can hold these as supplementing and informing our understanding of challenges and opportunities for mission. Second, it calls for an ongoing, long-term process. We have a tendency to move from General Convention to General Convention, and arrive at each new triennium with little memory of what we have done before. I’ve been to eight General Conventions on one capacity or another, and I’m as troubled as anyone else by our institutional forgetfulness that has us trying to reinvent the wheel. Finally, the process called for is reflective and open to modification. It needs to be flexible and adaptable. In our world where things seem to change so rapidly, many institutions have found that flexibility allows for sustained mission, while inflexibility is death. Certainly, we don’t want to be “blown about by every wind,” whether theological or cultural. At the same time, if our discernment, our strategic planning is focused first on missional concerns we should be able to make good choices about when to stand and when to move.

My friend and colleague George Clifford has recently written here about how the structures of the Church might change to better support mission. We might make such choices of course, but they would be an enterprise of years, if not decades. In the meantime good discernment, using the tool of ongoing strategic planning, can help us find our vocation as a whole Church and pursue them as well as we can within the structures that we have. Indeed, a good process of strategic planning for the work of the Executive Council and the Episcopal Church Center could recommend structural changes, or demonstrate that changes were unnecessary.

In a world where shouting has come to replace discussion (and apparently both news and entertainment), we will still rumble around hot button issues. However, I think we will find our future shaped more by lower key but systemic changes taking place in the background. A good process for strategic planning for the Executive Council and the Episcopal Church Center isn’t sexy. It isn’t going to attract, much less hold, attention in our noisy, flashy world. However, I think it will be critical for the future of the Episcopal Church. We are called to the ministry of Christ, both as individuals and as a body. For that purpose, we need a structured and flexible process for discerning our vocation and the challenges and opportunities we face in living it out. The attention will continue to come to specific issues, specific aspects of that vocation; but good strategic planning will better prepare us and our servant leaders to address all the aspects of the vocation to which God calls us.

The Rev. Marshall Scott is a chaplain in the Saint Luke’s Health System, a ministry of the Diocese of West Missouri. A past president of the Assembly of Episcopal Healthcare Chaplains, and an associate of the Order of the Holy Cross, he keeps the blog Episcopal Chaplain at the Bedside.

By Peter R. Carey

When it comes to the church, numbers count. They're important for sure, but they're not the whole story. And we Episcopalians have a bit of an inferiority complex about how few of us there are.

There are a little more than 300 million people in the United States, of whom almost 68 million are Roman Catholic. Nearly a quarter of our country’s total population self-identify as Roman Catholics. That’s a lot of Catholics! After the Catholics come the Baptists. If you combine the Southern Baptists with other Baptists, they come out to about 39 million. And that’s a lot of Baptists! Then come the Pentecostals, the Methodists, the Lutherans, the Mormons, the Orthodox, and the Presbyterians, as well as a number of other religious denominations--each of whom is in the single-digit category; that is, their numbers don't exceed 10 million.

Where does the Episcopal Church fit in, in terms of relative size? Well, we’re at about 2.4 million. So if you divide 300 million (which is the approximate population of the country) by 2.4 million, you come out with less than 1 percent of the population. Our membership base is really quite small when compared to many of the other Christian bodies. That’s NOT a lot of Episcopalians.

And yet, considering our small size, we’re quite influential and we play a significant role in the religious and civic life of our nation. We always have.

In fact the history of the Episcopal Church is a remarkable story of leadership and influence. We can be proud of the contributions we have made as a church to the progress of the country.

The Los Angeles Times recently published an editorial after our General Convention in Anaheim ended last month. The editorial makes exactly that point:

“With a little more than two million members, the Episcopal Church is far from being the country’s largest Christian denomination. But its recent pronouncements indicating support for openly gay bishops and church blessings for same-sex couples will have reverberations beyond that church, beyond Christianity and even beyond religion. For all the theological issues it raises, acceptance of gays and lesbians at the altar reflects--and affects--the struggle for equality in the larger society.” [LA Times Editorial 08-02-09]

Yes. What we do as a church often reverberates in the larger society.

This leads to the larger question of why. If indeed we have this leadership ability, this special charism, why do we have it? Where did this capacity to leverage our small numbers into big effects come from?

For me, the answer to that question can be found in two places: in our own history as a church, and in the early church’s theology of charism.

The history of the Episcopal Church and the history of the United States are closely intertwined. Before the American Revolution the church was one of three principal churches for the educated, mostly wealthy, ruling class, but that never meant that the church was completely supportive of the monarchy. In fact, by the 1770s it was deeply divided on that issue. Most, but not all, Anglicans wanted independence from England. Twenty-nine out of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence were Anglicans. But there were still many members of the church who were deeply loyal to the crown and during and after the Revolutionary War, many of them left the country rather than to support a rebellion against the monarchy. They returned to England or they moved to loyalist Canada.

The nascent church’s support of the democratic ideals of the Revolution cost it dearly. I say “nascent” because the Episcopal Church as such hadn’t yet been born. The church had lost a significant number of members; it had no bishops and the Archbishop of Canterbury could not ordain any without an oath of allegiance to the king, which no citizen of the new country could take. The church had no Prayer Book of its own. And the biggest problem of all was that it had no self-governing institutions. It had only a burning desire to continue in some way to remain a church with bishops and sacraments and a Book of Common Prayer--but at the same time to play an active role in the life of the new Republic.

With the help of some Scottish bishops, it obtained an independent episcopacy; it rewrote the Prayer Book, adapting it to the needs of our own country; and most importantly, it created a truly democratic system of self government that gave voice to the laity as well as to bishops in the governance of the church. No one had ever heard of such a thing! The task of the lay person in the past had been to pay, to pray, and to obey, but not to have much say. Now things were different. The church became a democratic church in a newly democratic land. It was a revolutionary way of remaining a catholic church and at the same time of being an inclusive church. Inclusive of the laity (at least the white male laity) in a whole new way.

So from the point of view of our earliest history, the steps that the Episcopal Church took in Anaheim a few of weeks ago to more fully include gay people in its life were really nothing new. They were, in a way, just the Episcopal Church being the Episcopal Church. Adapting to changing circumstances by remaining faithful to its origins; another step in an ongoing process that had begun at the beginning of its history.

At every juncture of its history, at the end of the day, our church has chosen inclusion over exclusion. It has almost always harkened back to its revolutionary and democratic ideals. And every time it made that choice there was some cost. But the church has consistently born that cost and come down on the side of greater inclusion and greater democracy.

Absalom Jones, for example, is remembered in our church as the first black priest. In fact, he was the first black minister to be ordained in any denomination in the United States. He was made a deacon in 1795. Imagine that! Less than twenty years after the Declaration of Independence. It didn’t take long for the new Episcopal Church to get involved in the struggle for black emancipation and black inclusion. Jones was ordained a priest in 1805. But the struggle was not easy. There were many northern Episcopalians who were indifferent to the issue of race and many southern Episcopalians who were openly hostile to the full inclusion of negroes in the life of the church. When the Civil War broke out, virtually the entire southern half of the Episcopal Church departed, although those dioceses did return after the war.

Now to the story of the place of women in the life of our church-- another volatile issue right from the start. If the men, both clerical and lay, could take an active role in the councils of the church, why couldn’t the women? The long and arduous struggle for women’s ordination, which wasn’t the only issue that concerned women, began as early as the the mid-1850’s. The quest for ordination lasted almost 125 years. It ended in 1976 when the church changed its canon law to allow female ordination.

In 1970 and in 1973, the House of Deputies of the General Convention (i.e. the priests and lay people who by then included women deputies) said yes to women’s ordination; the all male House of Bishops said no.

Finally, in 1974, eleven women were illegally but validly ordained priests in Philadelphia by three courageous retired bishops.

You could hear the cries of outrage from coast to coast and from Lambeth Palace to the Episcopal Church Headquarters in New York.

Finally, in 1976 those ordinations were regularized by the General Convention and by the end of ‘77 over a hundred women had been ordained. An exodus then began in earnest. A significant number of the church left. Whole parishes were sometimes affected. A number of conservative bishops dug in their heels and said, “Not in my diocese!” Many wondered whether the Episcopal Church would survive.

It did. And women continued to be ordained priests in greater numbers each year. Finally, in 1988 Barbara Harris became the first female bishop of the Episcopal Church.

So that same pattern of being in the vanguard, of being a beacon for social change has played itself out in our church over and over again in so many ways. Always the same pattern: first, hostility, then some form of acceptance, and finally, a kind of relief.

Now we’re in the midst of the next social revolution. The next battle for inclusion.

I’d like to say a little bit about the early church's theology of charism. One of the places where that is talked about is the Epistle to the Ephesians. I think we can apply that teaching to our church today and to its apparent vocation as a leading advocate of social change. It may also equip us with a theological explanation why we are the way we are and why we act the way we do.

Most scholars think that Ephesians was not written by St. Paul, but by a follower of Paul and in his name in order to give the work apostolic authority. It was probably written about the year 90.

There was one really big problem that had begun to manifest itself at that time. The problem was that the original twelve apostles had died and the end of the world hadn’t happened. People were beginning to say, “Hey, what’s going on here? Paul and the other Apostles and even Jesus himself all preached that the end of the world was at hand.” This delay in the return of Christ was causing difficulties. And people were squabbling and beginning to leave the church because of it.

The Book of Ephesians addressed these problems. Its basic argument is this: the timing of Christ’s return to earth and the establishment of the Kingdom of God is a mystery hidden in the mind of God. It’s not ours to know.

In the meantime, each one and each church must do his or her job. In chapter four of Ephesians [8-13], we read: “When he ascended on high, he gave gifts to us. It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service so that the Body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”

The story of how the church (and by “the church” I mean the whole Christian church); how the churches do their work and carry out God’s plan throughout history is undoubtedly a mystery hidden within the mind of God.

But this much can be said, I think. God gives gifts not only to individuals, but also to institutions; institutional gifts; corporate charisms. So, the churches too have been given various gifts at various times “to prepare God’s people for works of service” and for the hastening of the Kingdom of God.

I believe that God has given our church--the Episcopal Church--a special gift, a special charism--the gift of leadership, the gift and the task of going first, the gift of being in the vanguard. Another way of saying that is that the Episcopal Church has been called to speak the Good News of God in Christ to an ever-changing world.

But while we may rejoice in our call to be a progressive church, we should not forget that we are more than mere agents of social change. We’re agents and catalysts of social change, yes, but CHRISTIAN agents of change. We are followers of Christ, baptized into his Body, cooperators in his saving work. We take most seriously the words from Ephesians that follow those I cited above. We want to be “imitators of God, and to walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” Not just to promote social change.

So when we come together as a church, we do so not merely to map out a program of social advocacy, but also to pray, to petition, to give thanks, and to celebrate the Holy Eucharist together. To bear witness to the world that Christian faith and modern life can go together.
I think that this balance of activism and faith in Christ is wonderfully expressed in the Post Communion Prayer we say so often:

“We thank you for feeding us with the spiritual food of the most precious Body and Blood of your Son our Savior Jesus Christ.... And now, Father, send us out to do the work you have given us to do, to love and serve you as faithful witnesses of Christ our Lord. Amen."

The Rev. Peter Carey is assisting priest at Church of the Holy Apostles in New York City. This article is adapted from a sermon, preached on August 9.

By Giles Goddard

Two years ago I was lucky enough to be able to spend a couple of weeks visiting Episcopalian churches in New York, Rhode Island, Boston, Chicago and San Francisco – and I also visited the Columbus General Convention in 2006. Both times, I left the US with a deep sense of gratitude at the generous and open welcome I’d received. But more, I also had a sense that in many ways the Episcopal Church (TEC) has a clearer understanding of what it means to be Anglican than the Church of England. Perhaps because TEC is a small church compared with some others, and perhaps because it’s had to forge its identity in a much more competitive arena than the C of E with its historic privileges and relationship with the State, TEC appears to me to have imbibed the breadth, the diversity and the challenge of Jesus Christ to bring the Gospel to ALL people. Justice and welcome go all the way down. Of course, that’s not to say that the Episcopal Church is perfect, but seems to me you certainly score highly on your theology of mission.

So I’ve been watching with increasing dismay as the way in which you try to live out your mission is relentlessly undermined by groups opposed to your work, and the way in which that has brought about the extraordinary and depressing attempts to isolate TEC within the Anglican communion simply because it is trying to live out its understanding of the inclusive Gospel. And, to a lesser extent, the Anglican Church of Canada (ACC) – but for a host of reasons the situation the ACC faces is different.

Meanwhile, back in the UK we’ve been facing similar issues but dealing with them in a different way. As my American friends have often observed, we’re not as open as you; there’s a different relationship with the hierarchy and we tend to get on with things without being too public about them, while trying to work with the structures to bring about change. I don’t defend that – it’s just the way we are.

But that’s changing now. Not a moment too soon, you might say. Over the past few years different groups within the Church of England – Changing Attitude, the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement, Inclusive Church, Women and the Church, the Modern Churchpeople’s Union, Affirming Catholicism and many more from across the theological spectrum – have been working more and more closely together on a range of issues – for example, women bishops, the inclusion of people of colour, and of course questions of human sexuality. We’ve been coordinating our activities and sharing our vision, our knowledge and our experience. The Lambeth Conference in 2008 was an example of that – those of you who were there will remember the way in which progressive groups in the US, Canada and the UK tried to work together, and the challenges and learning processes which that involved!

On 27th July 2009 the Archbishop of Canterbury’s response to the General Convention in Anaheim was published. The immediate reaction, in the UK as much as in the USA, was one of dismay. While we understood what the Archbishop was seeking to do, the reflections contained a much clearer statement of his understanding of the place of LGBT people – or rather, the lack of place – within the Anglican Communion than we had previously heard, and they also seemed to acknowledge in a much more fatalistic way the prospect of a two-track communion.

A meeting already planned for the following Friday was quickly expanded and was made into an open meeting for anyone or any group concerned about the reflections and wishing to respond. It’s fair to say that the meeting was quite low key; there was a general feeling that once again LGBT Christians and their friends and colleagues had been shown to be excluded, and after years of trying different ways to end that exclusion this was a further rebuff.

However, there was also general agreement that a “tipping point” had been reached. Various concrete suggestions were made as to the way forward – for example, getting better statistics about the number of LGBT clergy and lay people in the church and how many same-sex blessings and thanksgivings have been carried out in England; raising the visibility of LGBT clergy and their supportive congregations; forming closer links with TEC; and a joint Statement.

The statement “On the Archbishop’s Reflections” was drafted the next day and published the following Tuesday with the signatures of 13 groups from across the Church of England, and the tacit support of several others. It is only part of a work in progress, and we are meeting again in September to take forward the other ideas. But it’s the first time we in the C of E have made so public a joint stand on these questions, and we hope that this collaborative working will continue to bear fruit.

What of the future? We certainly welcome better and stronger links with the US and Canada – as we say in the statement “We will seek to strengthen the bonds of affection which exist between those in all the Churches of the Anglican Communion who share our commitment to the full inclusion of all of God’s faithful.”

The big question facing us all is how we respond to the suggestion of a two-track Communion. The feeling within the progressive groups of the Church of England is that such a thing should be resisted, and if the Covenant were to bring this about it, too, should be resisted. However, and this is a new thought for me, there may be another way. The Episcopal Church in Anaheim passed various resolutions which reaffirmed its inclusive polity and brought greater clarity about the way forward TEC may take. In that context, and having passed those resolutions, what is to stop TEC signing the Covenant? We are awaiting a further draft, but unless it contains radical strengthening of any judicial measures, it seems to me that TEC would be able to sign it, as a sign of its mutual commitment and in the context of its present policy of ensuring that it is open to LGBT people both single and in relationships. Result; a Communion strengthened and affirmed in its breadth and diversity and once again bearing a global witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

And for the Church of England? We still have a long way to go. The measures to bring about full recognition of LGBT Christians are still a few years off, and as presently drafted the Covenant might delay those measures even further. Maybe the Church of England shouldn’t sign it. In which case, I suppose, we would be outside the main body while TEC would be inside. Now there’s a thought to conjure with.....

One thing’s clear. We have to move on from this debate and find a way to live together and acknowledge difference, as we have on so many other issues – so that the churches in the Anglican Communion can be free to speak with credibility once again about the other, so urgent, issues and challenges which face us all.

The Rev. Canon Giles Goddard is priest in charge designate at St John’s Church, Waterloo, London, and chair of Inclusive Church.

By Greg Jones

On a long drive last week, I listened to fifteen lectures on the history of the Byzantine Empire. What many of us often forget is that in the eleven hundred years of the so-called Byzantine Empire, nobody in it ever thought of himself or the empire of which he was a citizen as 'Byzantine.' No, they called themselves and believed themselves to be Romans. And so they were. What we call the Byzantine Empire is really just the Eastern portion of the Roman Empire which survived the fall of Rome itself in the 400s, and the decline into chaos of the Empire in the Latin West. So, the Roman Empire did not end in the 5th century -- but rather -- a thousand years later in the 15th century, with the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans.

The last five centuries of the Roman Empire (and remember our nation is half that old) were primarily centuries of decline. With some ups and mostly downs, the Empire shrank so much by the 15th century that for its last decades it consisted of nothing beyond the walls of Constantinople. Impressive though those walls were -- an empire which consists of no more than a city is a paltry empire indeed.

And yet, through that time and until the end, the Byzantines believed they were citizens of a universal empire, whose authority rested on God, and whose extent included the world. Certainly, they were delusional. And had been deluded about who they really were for at least as long as they were sane.

In the Gospel of John, we encounter many signs about who Jesus really is. We encounter the many 'I am' statements, as well as the signs of miraculous feedings, healings, and the walking on water. All these signs tell us of the cosmic identity and sacred value of Jesus - and how God is working through him visibly in the world.

What about us? Me and you? The Episcopal Church? Do we share in the cosmic identity and mission of God in Christ? Are we citizens of this the City of God? Or is there no sign of it beyond the Byzantine walls of self-delusion?

What peace do we bring in the name of the Father? What feeding are we doing in the name of Jesus Christ? What water-walking and wonder-working are we doing by the power of the Holy Spirit? What beautiful mysteries do we present to the world for their sake, beyond our own private interests?

What the emperors of Rome and (we also) got wrong was that God did not need them to conquer him a world. God demonstrates in Christ that he doesn't need us to conquer the world, but rather to serve the world.

When Scipio destroyed the Carthaginian empire once and for all (some two centuries before Christ) he wept. When asked why he wept, he said, "One day another general will do the same to Rome." And of course he was right. Just as Israel was destroyed (first in north and then in south) Rome was destroyed (first in West and then in East.)

Ours will also end.

But until this civilization is ended, by whom and when we will not know until it's too late, we are called to abide more permanently in the City of God anyway. In Christ, we are called to abide in the City of God which exists in this world for this declining-and-falling-World's sake.

What are the signs that we are citizens of this universal city? Do they extend and are they visible beyond our walls of self-protection and self-concern?

Amen.

The Rev. Samuel Gregory Jones ('Greg') is rector of St. Michael's in Raleigh, N.C., a trustee of General Seminary and the bass player in indie-rock band The Balsa Gliders — whose fourth studio release is available on iTunes. He blogs at Anglican Centrist.

By Greg Jones

With the passage of D025 and C056, many are wondering: What does it all mean?

In a nutshell, it seems to me that what D025 and C056 mean is that The Episcopal Church has told the truth about who and where it is on the controversial issue of fully including gay Christians living in nuptial unions into all orders within the priesthood of all believers. It also tells the truth about where the Episcopal Church is as regards our desire to remain in full communion with the other churches of the Anglican Communion.

The truth on both questions is this: we are not exactly sure yet.

We are not exactly sure what the future will bring for us on both things. We recognize that within our own body is a degree of opinion that varies from staunch support/opposition to staunch ambivalence. As such, D025 essentially upholds a degree of local option on the question of ordaining Christians in same-sex marriage-like unions. It does not in any way guarantee that all or any dioceses will be open to calling and ordaining such persons. (Yes, God calls through the Church.) It does say, however, that the discernment for such is entirely entrusted to dioceses provided they conform with those national canons which are pertinent. In other words, the resolution affirms the status quo ante (before 2006) of how discernment for clerical orders is done.

Does D025 have the effect of 'over-turning' B033? Hard to say in actual fact. B033 was not a 'rule' or a canon, it was a form of urging. Likewise, D025 is not a law either -- it simply reaffirms the sufficiency of the canons vis a vis discernment processes. When it comes right down to it, if a priest were elected to the episcopate whose 'manner of life' was likely to cause difficulty globally, D025 would not have any necessary effect on whether or not said person was consented to by the Standing Committees/House of Bishops and/or General Convention.

Does D025 have the effect of 'looking like' a repudiation of the so-called 'moratorium' sought by Windsor? Of course it does. And likely, in a way, so does C056, which has to do with marriage equality -- which similarly brings us back to a kind of status quo ante 2006. Again, it is a resolution which suggests that we support local pastoral options, and are continuing to examine what if any liturgical/canonical revisions would be made at the General Convention level down the road a stretch.

Both of these resolutions, however, will be perceived globally as some kind of repudiation of the Windor moratoria. The real question though is, "Does this matter?"

If D025 and C056 represent an effort for the Episcopal Church to tell the truth about where we are (as messy as that is) then truth-telling is called for as to the state of the Anglican Communion.

The fact is that those who most demanded the Windsor moratoria did not accept that we had abided by them -- and they have never made any sincere attempt even to look like they were abiding by the moratorium that applied to them. Indeed, when it comes to facts on the ground, the movement that has never done a single thing to abide by Windsor, has many more of them. If The Episcopal Church has one openly partnered gay bishop, and an ongoing practice of local option regarding blessing same-gender couples' unions, the GAFCON movement has created dozens of separatist/schismatic bishops, and have created a continent-sized new province which is actively soliciting recognition by the Church of England synod to be fully recognized as a province in full communion with the See of Canterbury.

Moreover, if we are telling the truth, whereas The Episcopal Church has essentially gone not forward but "back to where we once were" -- with D025/C056 largely looking like a return to the kinds of resolutions which passed in 1991-2000 General Conventions -- the GAFCON movement has gone way off into an anachronistic future whereby the faith is expressed according to the epistemological, theological, cosmological mindset of late 17th century Britain. Notably, we have seen the full-fledged launch of what will likely be an alternative Anglican communion devoid of those developments in Anglicanism which have arisen since the Oxford Movement.

To be sure, The Episcopal Church is not an exemplary model of the Gospel and the catholic church either. I still hold that we are now, perhaps more than ever, a church convinced of the priority of our autonomy - and I find that troubling at times.

Then again, on the other hand, I also recognize that while neither salvation nor discernment of God's will are individualistic endeavors -- there is a part of the process which requires the individual (person or church) to perceive God's vocation even against the opposition of other perso's who likewise are seeking to be faithful.

I do believe that the witness to Christ given by many gay Christians (in various orders of ministry) is a fact in our midst. Their witness to so many of us in the Episcopal Church is also available to many around the Anglican Communion -- and I do believe that people will increasingly come to see that they are proclaiming Christ -- born, crucified, risen and ascended. By being a place where such witness is fostered, the Episcopal Church is, I believe, doing the hard thing (in fact) by standing for a discernment of God's will which does not yet meet easy and widespread approval.

In this, of course, it will remain to be seen whether we are doing something prophetic, or not. If we have decided to stake our selves, our souls, and our bodies on this sense that God is indeed calling for a new thing, (thereby we are perceiving ourselves to have a prophetic vocation), then of course we must do what we believe God is calling us to do. We may of course know that it won't be well or widely received by all. We must of course know that there will come pain and reaction. We must know that -- unlike the people whom Jonah spoke to -- the whole place will not immediate change their ways. We must be willing to receive the reaction against what we perceive to be true -- and to do so graciously and humbly.

Indeed, if we are acting in any way prophetically by passing D025 and C056, we must be prepared to turn the other cheek when the slaps come, and continue to maintain the posture of faithful witnesses to Jesus Christ, Lord and Savior, who was born, died, rose, ascended and will come again as part of the fulfillment of God's plan before the worlds began, to make all things well.

The Rev. Samuel Gregory Jones ('Greg') is rector of St. Michael's in Raleigh, N.C., a trustee of General Seminary and the bass player in indie-rock band The Balsa Gliders — whose fourth studio release is available on iTunes. He blogs at Anglican Centrist.

By Marshall Scott

The robins are eating my blueberries.

This is not a new problem. It was something of a surprise to me when my wife first pointed it out to me a number of years ago. In part I was surprised because the bushes had born for several years, and no robin had appeared. But I must admit I was more surprised because of all those coloring book images of happy robins tugging struggling worms out of the ground. I had seen them pick at worms. I had even seen them poking through the grass, picking up insects. I had no idea that robins ate berries, much less that they would eat mine.

In years past, I’ve been able to prevent most of their predation. I’ve taken time to build a frame – really, a cage – of concrete reinforcing bar and bird netting. I built it large enough that I could move under it to pick myself, and tight enough that birds couldn’t get in. On the rare occasion one did, it was generally sorry enough not to come back.

But this year the cage didn’t happen. This year the spring rains always seemed to fall on Saturday, or at least on every Saturday when I didn’t have another commitment. Too, my wife is lead gardener for the parish’s new vegetable garden, with the produce committed to another parish’s soup kitchen. So, there wasn’t as much time this year to get the cage built.

And another thing: this year the robins waited. They didn’t show up when the bushes bloomed. They didn’t even show up when the berries first became distinctive. No, they waited. They waited until the berries were full sized, and starting to take on some color. Even then they hung back. I took off the first cup of ripe (or at least ripe enough) berries. And suddenly the next day they were there.

And, to make matters worse there are more of them than ever before. In the past it’s been one, and occasionally two. These days it’s three and frequently four. If I’m outside at the right time, I can scare them off with the solid bang of a deadfall peach thrown at the fence behind them. But of course with more rain and less time I’m not out there enough; and like as not that one cup of blueberries will be all I harvest this year.

I find myself wondering if I didn’t teach them this persistence. Several years – probably several generations - of robins have grown up lusting after my berries. For most of those years they’ve been prevented, stymied by the barrier of net and steel. Did they wait to be sure what I would do? Did they wait, holding back so as to lull me into a sense of security; and then swarm in when, caught by time and hoping they really weren’t coming, I didn’t put my guard up? Indeed, did I teach them to want the berries all the more because they were for so long out of reach?

I have to wonder. That seems too much intelligence, too much planning, to attribute to a robin. On the other hand, there have been those remarkable reports about the ability of some parrots to synthesize spoken concepts. So, who knows? Maybe I did teach them or inspire in them the persistence to wait and seize that which had long been forbidden.

I have occasionally wondered if we needed to do the same thing with the faith. We worry about the next generation of Episcopalians. At our lowest we worry about whether there will be a next generation of Episcopalians. I sometimes wonder whether that would change if we made participation in the Church somehow forbidden.

What if, for example, we barred everyone under sixteen from worship? I don’t mean just making them wait for communion. I mean not allowing them in the door. Can you imagine the young teens trying to sneak into church, instead of sneaking out for an illicit drink? Can you imagine them trying to sneak into the side doors of the transepts instead of the side doors of movie theaters? Can you imagine them surreptitiously reading the Prayer Book under their covers instead of one or another sensational magazine? “Reverse psychology” is largely the stuff of cartoons and situation comedies; and yet there’s enough apparent truth in it that virtually every parent has tried it at least once. Think what might happen if we did that in the Church.

We could think of it like so many other things in life. We hold some things apart as “adult,” things which we forbid to “children,” even children of relatively advanced age. And after all, the one thing that every child wants is to be an adult. If we made Church “adults only,” wouldn’t they clamor to join in?

And, you know, there’s precedent, at least of a sort. In early Eucharists the Peace was the point at which those who weren’t going receive left. Those not yet baptized and those under discipline weren’t just prevented from receiving. They had to leave the building. I have to wonder whether some, at least, didn’t look for a window to at least peek in. Couldn’t that work now?

Well, maybe it could; but, not for us. Oh, it might well get and hold the attention of a number of folks; but I don’t think we could take that step. You see, it may be good marketing, but it’s bad theology.

It is bad theology first because we are called to be people of light, and not of darkness. Certainly, Christ is the Light of the World, but there’s a lot more to it than that. The Gospels call us to put our lamp on the stand, and not under the bed or a bushel. They tell us that what is hidden in darkness will be exposed in the light. They call us to walk in the light.

It’s bad, too, in that we have been shaped, perhaps more than we know, by the same desire as the author of Proverbs. Many times that author speaks of raising children. We know best, “Train children in the right way, and when old, they will not stray;” but we might also claim “And now, my child, listen to me, and do not depart from the words of my mouth.” And how shall the child listen to our words if we haven’t shared them?

And so we model ourselves on Peter when Christ called him to evangelize Cornelius. When he spoke to Cornelius, Peter said, “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.” As he reported when he returned to Jerusalem, Peter understood God’s intent to be that Cornelius and “all [his] house will be saved.” In light of that mission, Peter asked, “Who was I that I could hinder God?”

This is, after all, the foundation on which we baptized infants. We want them to grow “in the right way,” a way that we publicly proclaim and in which we want them to participate. To that end we make explicit our expectations of parents that they will see “that the child you present is brought up in the Christian faith and life,” so that “this child [can] grow into the full stature of Christ.” To that end we all commit to support them; after all, we all say, “We will!” We seek to bring them into life in Christ, and not simply the club of Christ.

It is also the foundation on which many of us call for full inclusion and full participation of all the baptized in the life of the Church. Until we see the Kingdom, we will all still have room to grow in the knowledge and love of the Lord; and we pray often enough for our departed brothers and sisters that such growth can continue in the Kingdom as well. The Holy Spirit fell on everyone in Cornelius’ house who heard Peter. So it was that in the face of criticism from the circumcised believers, Peter said, “If then God gave them the same [Spirit] that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?”

And so we could not in good faith keep the faith from our youngest, whether they are young in years or simply young in faith. Withholding might make for good marketing in its way. It might even teach some to long for something they cannot have. It just wouldn’t reflect God as he has revealed himself in Christ. It wouldn’t express our call that all participate fully in Christ’s Body, the Church. In short, it wouldn’t demonstrate the faith as we have received it.

This is not to say that we can’t help our newest and our youngest siblings to appreciate the wonder and the value of life in Christ, and so inspire them to live in the Body more fully. I think, though, that we will do that more faithfully and effectively by what we give than by what we withhold; by what we demonstrate than by what we hide. It has been said before, but can bear saying again: if we commend the faith that is in us, if we allow the love of God in Christ to shine through us, we won’t have to worry about the next generation of the Episcopal Church. Living in Christ to the best of our ability will so shape our community and our communion that we are able to welcome our newest and our youngest, and to offer them all the opportunity they can desire to grow in grace and to participate in the life of the Church. They will certainly desire, as we desire, to do more and to know more of life in Christ. It’s just that they will desire it, not because it’s been hidden, but because they will see, first in us and then in themselves, the wonder and the mystery of the love God has for us, and the possibilities to know more, to do more, and to be more.

The Rev. Marshall Scott is a chaplain in the Saint Luke’s Health System, a ministry of the Diocese of West Missouri. A past president of the Assembly of Episcopal Healthcare Chaplains, and an associate of the Order of the Holy Cross, he keeps the blog Episcopal Chaplain at the Bedside.

By George Clifford

Raffaellino Del Garbo’s painting, "Resurrection of Christ,” hangs in the Academia Gallery in Florence, Italy. Painted about 1500-05, this piece depicts the risen Christ's empty tomb and beatific face, the soldiers’ faces and arms, Mary’s face and attire, and the surrounding scenery in early16th century Italian imagery foreign to first century Palestine.

On the one hand, the painting seems a giant non-sequitur. Jesus and Mary were both first century Palestinian Jews; the soldiers, perhaps ancestors of sixteenth century Italians, were certainly first century Roman legionnaires; the surrounding area and tomb were in the environs of Jerusalem, not Florence.

On the other hand, paintings that translate biblical scenes and events into the painter’s locale and historical period remain a popular genre because of our need to make the Bible and its stories contemporary. Mid-twentieth century American art portraying a black Jesus echoed this aim. Making the Bible contemporary is important because one function of much Christian art is to invite the viewer (or listener, reader, etc.) to enter into the biblical story, to there encounter God, and through a dialectical process to experience an inner transformation.

The controversy that swirled around portrayals of a black Jesus illustrates how the powerful – in this case Caucasians – can misuse Christianity, seeking to force the marginalized and disempowered to accept the image of Christ, along with its associated theology, sanctioned by the powerful. By controlling what constitutes acceptable art, the powerful attempt to protect their privileged status, ensuring that for whatever experience the art may be a catalyst, the experience will reinforce or at least not undermine the elite’s dominance. Thanks be to God, the Episcopal Church has largely progressed beyond the era in its history when it unofficially and yet powerfully promoted Caucasian dominance.

Like oil paints or watercolors, theological language and liturgical actions are artistic mediums. Christian religious discourse and worship sketch pictures, inviting hearers to enter into the biblical story, to there encounter God, and through a dialectical process to experience inner transformation. At its best, Christian worship, for example, is a drama that invites participants to enter into the Jesus story. Couching the drama in contemporary language, as preachers through the centuries have discovered, makes the story feel more relevant, more inviting to those present. Rafaellino Del Garbo understood this. The artists who portrayed Jesus as a black man understood this.

William Young understood this when he wrote his novel, The Shack, casting God as a black woman. While certainly not great literature and arguably reflecting poor theology, this bestseller did not unleash a torrent, or even trickle, of criticism for Young portraying God as either black or a woman. Admittedly, the pervasive masculine terms for God found in the Book of Common Prayer, much theological discourse, and too many sermons underscore the distance we have yet to travel before fully dethroning masculine dominance from Christianity.

The Episcopal Church sits at a crossroads. The Church, on several fronts, must choose between a static, centuries-old portrayal of Jesus and the Bible, a perspective increasingly remote from twenty-first century American life, and a dynamic portrayal of Jesus, retelling his story in images and language relevant and comprehensible to post-moderns. Cutting-edge challenges exist not only with respect to human sexuality but also at other points at which theology collides with advances in science.

Will the Episcopal Church succumb to fundamentalist pressures from within and without the Anglican Communion to become a Church that seeks creedal uniformity? The cost of choosing that direction is to concretize Jesus’ charisma, the vital Spirit of the living God. This displaces risky personal encounters that can lead to life-giving transformation with safe and standardized creedal orthodoxy. Such formulas are like good Christian art: appropriate to a particular moment in the spatio-temporal matrix and not eternally definitive.

Alternatively, will the Episcopal Church continue down the risky but exciting and dynamic path that is consistent with our time-honored Anglican tradition: praying together, living in unity in spite of theological and ethical diversity, preserving an openness through our linguistic and liturgical art to God's ongoing revelation? One cost of choosing this direction is that the Episcopal Church may not move, as it strives to be faithful to the mind of Christ, in concert with other members of the Anglican Communion. A potential cost of choosing this direction is that the Episcopal Church may misunderstand what God is saying and move in a wrong direction. True discipleship always entails that risk. Thanks be to God we serve a loving, forgiving God who is bigger than any possible mistake we might make.

Choose this day whom you will serve: the dead, institutionalized idol of time-bound religion or the living God that no earthly artistic image, regardless of the medium, can faithfully depict? That choice confronts the Episcopal Church at its 2009 General Convention in Anaheim. I pray that the Episcopal Church will wisely avoid unnecessary votes, harmful posturing, the temptation to reject the new in favor of the time-bound, and the temptation to reject fresh insights into the depth of God's all-embracing love for ephemeral firework

The Rev. Dr. George Clifford, Diocese of North Carolina, served as a Navy chaplain for twenty-four years He taught philosophy at the U. S. Naval Academy and ethics at the Postgraduate School. He blogs at Ethical Musings.

By Nigel J. Taber-Hamilton

We Christians face an uncertain future. Not just those of us who are Episcopalian – all Christians. All Christians and especially those of us who live in the North Atlantic Community, the old First and Second Worlds.

The evidence is overwhelming – dramatic shifts in human identity and understanding have been taking place for a very long time, and the pace of change has picked up very significantly in the last fifty years. A paradigm-shift is taking place and the Church is swept up in it. No one – no faith community – is immune. The truth is that the future will be very different than the present, and will require a dramatically different way of being “church” if we are to last more than a couple of decades into the 21st Century.

Throughout our culture old patterns of relationship, old iterations of institutional identity, old ways of believing are passing away.

They are not passing away easily. Retreats into absolutism, hierarchy, and paternalism abound, especially in Mainline faith traditions.

In many ways deep denial exists in all corners of faith communities. Denial no only among those who seek to retrench, who believe it is possible to turn back the tidal wave, but also among those who have some awareness that change is inevitable, but believe that, in the interests of community and unity, the change needs to be – can be – managed.

When tidal waves arrive it does not matter what groups and individuals believe – whether they are in denial, or are being co-dependent – they are all going to be washed away.

The Episcopal Church faces just such a time.

All Mainline denominations face this dramatically different future, of course. We share the path with other Mainline denominations, such as the Presbyterians and Methodists and the ELCA Lutherans, seeking to respond to these dramatic changes.

We flatter ourselves if we think the world is watching us while we decide how to embrace the inevitable future – and make no mistake, it is inevitable. On the whole, the world outside does not really care very much – most folk are struggling with their own issues and responses.

The world outside could care, of course. It could care if it sees a faith tradition not just struggling with these issues that are metaphors for the change but responding in healthy ways.

Whether we should be concerned about the response of contemporary society is an open question, but it is also moot. The changes will happen whether we like it or not.

Now, at General Convention, we face decisions about one such metaphor for change. What will we do?

As we decide we need to remember that the blessing of same-sex unions or the consecration of those persons who are in committed same-sex relationships is not the issue in front of us but simply a presenting event of the deeper struggle over the future – just as the ordination of women to priesthood and episcopate has been.

It is time to move on.

All change results in loss, and it is, perhaps anticipatory loss that most of all drives those who resist change. While it is important – vital – for all of us to offer compassionate responses to those experiencing profound loss it is not for us to be co-dependent.

We cannot make any decision based on what others might (probably will) do.

We cannot betray good and holy Christians because of what others claim about their identities – claims we know to be – at the least – questionable.

We cannot allow those who claim the exclusive right to interpret biblical truth to control how we understand biblical truth.

And we cannot allow those who claim some authority – even as a first among equals – to influence our decision-making solely through their role.

Were we to do any of these things – were we to continue down the same, appeasing path – we betray our own faith, we betray the way we have come to be faithful Episcopal Christians, we betray Jesus.

Nigel J. Taber-Hamilton is rector of St. Augustine's-in-the-woods Episcopal Church on Whidbey Island, Washingtonand a former alternate deputy to General Convention. Contact him at rector@whidbey.com.

By Donald Schell

Irenaeus and standards of ‘orthodoxy’ have figured significantly in recent public discussion of the bishop elect of Northern Michigan, Kevin Thew Forrester. It now appears (unless some standing committees and perhaps some bishops reconsider their votes) that the public work of a faithful pastor will be used and quoted against him to prevent his consecration as bishop by the people of his diocese who chose him and bishops and clergy of our church who worked closely with them through an extended discernment process. In this process ‘orthodoxy’ has emerged as a line in the sand and Irenaeus has been invoked as a vigilant enforcer of it. I don’t recognize the spirit of Irenaeus in this effort.

Irenaeus comes into the discussion because Fr. Thew Forrester regularly quotes this important early theologian. I’ve enjoyed that in Thew Forrester’s work beginning with I Have Called you Friends: an Invitation to Ministry, which I first read eighteen months or so ago, before the election prompted this controversy. I recognized immediately that this book with its strong, vibrant picture of shared ministry and mission and its vision of our growing into maturity in Christ counted on sources like my old friend Irenaeus and as I read recalled with pleasure my first encounter with Irenaeus’ arguments for Christian orthodoxy against the ‘false Gnostics.’ Irenaeus appealed to the church’s public teaching and the lineage of teacher-bishops who carried that teaching back to Christ. Irenaeus claims apostolic succession in an unbroken lineage of public teaching, in other words, Irenaeus’ generous and inclusive definition of Christian orthodoxy rests on his appeal to the church’s public teaching.

Sometimes people take ‘orthodoxy’ to mean ‘holding the line.’ Irenaeus’ adversaries were teaching (to initiates) that there was a firm line and clear definition of what belonged to God and what did not. Responding to that impulse, Irenaeus boldly claimed that everything that had breath lived by the Spirit of God. For Irenaeus the theological line was incarnational, defending his broadly inclusive understanding of reconciliation (or atonement) through recapitulation - ‘what he [Christ] did not assume, he did not save.’ From Irenaeus it’s a short step to Gregory Nazianzen, ‘He became what we are that we might become what he is.’ Like the major theologians of the several centuries that followed him, Irenaeus was working to keep Christian faith grounded in human experience and open to God’s embrace of all people.

Following St. Paul, and echoing the Gospel of John (in a passage Desmond Tutu quotes enthusiastically) Irenaeus readily insisted that Christ lifted up on the cross drew all people to himself as he had taken all of human life to himself, moment by moment throughout Jesus’ life among us. Irenaeus takes on elitism, secret knowledge. The orthodoxy Irenaeus defends so fiercely proclaims God’s longing to embrace us all. Orthodoxy, in Irenaeus use, holds an opening for universal salvation, union, and knowledge of God. It is quite explicitly a celebration of the Divine Embrace of all of human existence and all of life. The rarefied ‘knowledge’ of the false Gnostics privileged the immutable perfection of God and the limited means of regaining access to knowledge or vision of God. Heresy in Irenaeus’ thinking was this teaching of a partial, exclusivist salvation – only the noetic/spiritual part of who we are and that only for a few, highly select people.

Irenaeus’ theology makes the Spirit very active wherever there is life. John’s Gospel warns us the Spirit, blowing where it will, may take us to some unexpected places. The argument against accepting Northern Michigan’s election has drawn on passages from Kevin Thew Forrester’s sermons. I’ve disagreed with some of the diagnosis and interpretation of possible theological problems critics have found in statements Thew Forrester has made, but more to the point, as a preacher, I believe that we keep an ear open to those outside of church, listen to their longing and questions, weigh the best in our common culture and discourse, and take some risks formulating Good News of God’s work among us. Even Episcopalians who attend church most frequently spend most of their time living outside church working with people who think out-of-church thoughts. Good preachers, faithful preachers DO make mistakes. Lively engaged preachers must make mistakes sometimes. The theological risks we take in public become part of the church’s great conversation. The discovery (or blunder) any one of us happens on (or into) preaching has far more power as it is appropriated, corrected, reshaped, and blessed (or rejected) by the community to which we’re preaching. Our faithful task is to tell the great story of God’s love for us in Jesus and include and bless as much of our people’s experience in it as we can.

From Irenaeus on through the first seven ecumenical councils, the steady impetus of the original definition of orthodoxy was to celebrate how completely and how intimately God has joined God’s self to us, our humanity, and our world and how our genuine knowledge of God is experience of being drawn into God in Christ. Not just in Irenaeus, but throughout the great Christological controversies of the first eight centuries, orthodoxy consistently rejected enlightened, high-minded efforts to narrow, refine, protect, and make wholly consistent the church’s faith and practice. Sometimes (as in the third council designating Mary as Theotokos, bearer or birth-giver of God) they dignified unauthorized local liturgical innovations by allowing the new words to carry the doctrinal weight of demonstrating how completely God had taken on our life and experience.

I DO want to be held accountable for my preaching by Irenaeus’ underlying standard of orthodoxy, one I strive to live into. I ask myself: Am I as a preacher consistently looking for the words, stories, and interpretation of Biblical and other inspired texts that make God’s action among us clearer and more evident to even the most ordinary listener? Am I committed enough to being a guide and catalyst in that search to risk making some serious mistakes? Do I (and the congregation over time) have an unfolding discovery that in our preaching conversation (including its missteps and blunders) ‘we have the mind of Christ’? I’m grateful for the dead-ends that I’ve explored as a preacher, and even for the blunders I’ve made. I’m profoundly grateful that it’s been a real conversation challenged by the real experience and faith of people I’ve had the privilege of preaching with. I’m glad that after thirty-seven years, I can tell a congregation that I and we are still learning, still trying to find words that are sharp enough or evocative enough to point compellingly toward the mystery of perfect Love. I’ve argued elsewhere that such risk-taking is exactly the orthodoxy that the church of the first eight centuries was struggling to protect.

Watching our church, hearing bishops and standing committees across the whole Episcopal Church report that they’ve been poring over the preaching of a missionary theologian, checking the ‘orthodoxy’ of every word and phrase, because this pastor is now bishop-elect of Northern Michigan troubles me. My experience of thirty-seven years of priesthood is that our Episcopal churches preachers have gotten steadily better. We’re trying to preach honestly, to speak to human experience, to read Scripture with love and passion, and to take risks. Why would we subject any preacher who is actively engaged in pastoral and missionary theology to a line by line scrutiny of sermons-once-preached to see if phrases drawn from ancient Christian and contemporary cultural sources might be taken to imply something that deviates from a central ‘core of orthodoxy.’ Irenaeus’ insistent definition of the central core of orthodoxy would have us bend the opposite direction. Christ has taken all things on or into himself.

Are we giving orthodoxy a bad name? Or is it that others - our own schismatics and some Anglicans in the Global South - have already made orthodoxy problematic for us, except that now we know no way to reclaim the word but on their terms? Irenaeus’ orthodoxy isn’t a tight, closed fellowship, but a broad, moving river. He boldly innovates and embellishes to make clear his conviction that the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ is, in Christ, embracing the whole world, that every moment and aspect of Jesus’ living and dying is saturated with God’s presence and has its own power to unite us to God, and that the earth is filled with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea.

The Rev. Donald Schell, founder of St. Gregory of Nyssa Church in San Francisco, is President of All Saints Company.

We are now observing summer hours on Daily Episcopalian. Rather than six essays per week, we will be running five, with fresh essays appearing Sunday and then Tuesday through Friday.

By Peter M. Carey

At my family’s cottage on Cape Cod, there is a bird feeder place in the middle of the front yard. It has been there for 20 years or so, made of brown metal, on a black pole. It has a kind of a perch for the birds to sit on which “shuts off” the access to bird seed if an animal larger than the average bird tries to get the food. It is designed so that squirrels and blackbirds will not be able to get to the food. Over the years, this bird feeder has been given new life through a black bungee cord which helps to keep it attached to the pole, and also through several stakes pounded into the ground and fastened to the pole, so that it continues to stand more or less upright.

Recently, I was sitting and watching the bird feeder out of the corner of my eye during a Sunday morning rain shower. The birds came steadily to feed. Sorry to say I am no accomplished birder, but I recognized red-winged blackbirds, cardinals, blue jays, robins, an agile blackbird or two, as well as countless little birds beyond my ability to identify. What was also remarkable were two chipmunks who found a way to climb up the pole, onto the perch, and who filled their cheeks with food and then scurried down and into the woods. The chipmunks took turns, it seemed, to grab the food and then sock it away. At times, the chipmunks shared the perch with a bird or two, and at times the chipmunks startled the birds, and at times a bird startled the chipmunks. But, on that Sunday morning, there was plenty of food to go around. I even saw a courageous and agile squirrel hold onto the top of the feeder and stretch down to eat bird food for several seconds before sliding off the feeder. Luckily for the squirrel, the birds are somewhat messy eaters, and there is plenty of birdseed scattered on the ground.

While not the perfect metaphor or parable, what captured my attention about this old bird feeder is that it gave me a moment to wonder about the internal squabbles of our beloved Episcopal Church. It seems to me that much energy is being spent about who is welcome and who is not (ironic, of course, when you consider our Episcopal Church motto: “the Episcopal Church welcomes you”). I do wonder if we need greater attention to and reflection upon the sacrament of the Eucharist.

On rainy Sunday mornings (and every day), we are fed with the overflowing gifts from God, and we are all welcome and invited to the table. There is plenty of God’s grace to go around, if only we noticed it, if only we refocused our emphasis. I don’t mean to argue for some Pollyanna solution for our very real conflicts; that we only need to say “hey let’s get along.” For I know all to well the hurt, frustration, and anger that has welled up for so many people in the midst of our squabbles. However, I do feel that while we work through present disagreements and infighting we would do well to reconsider the importance of our mutual bonds to one another, at the foot of the Cross and around the Eucharistic Table. There is plenty of food to go around.

The Rev. Peter M. Carey is associate rector at Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Greenwood, Virginia. He blogs at Santos Woodcarving Popsicles.

On April 16, 1963, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., wrote letter from a Birmingham jail cell to a number of clergy men, including the Episcopal Bishop of Alabama, who though that he and his supporters were asking for too much, too soon. As the Episcopal Church looks forward to its General Convention next month, it seems an appropriate time to contemplate the ways in which King's famous letter may be applicable to us and to our Church.

An excerpt from "Letter from a Birmingham Jail"

I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.

In your statement you assert that our actions, even though peaceful, must be condemned because they precipitate violence. But is this a logical assertion? Isn't this like condemning a robbed man because his possession of money precipitated the evil act of robbery? Isn't this like condemning Socrates because his unswerving commitment to truth and his philosophical inquiries precipitated the act by the misguided populace in which they made him drink hemlock? Isn't this like condemning Jesus because his unique God consciousness and never ceasing devotion to God's will precipitated the evil act of crucifixion? We must come to see that, as the federal courts have consistently affirmed, it is wrong to urge an individual to cease his efforts to gain his basic constitutional rights because the quest may precipitate violence. Society must protect the robbed and punish the robber. I had also hoped that the white moderate would reject the myth concerning time in relation to the struggle for freedom. I have just received a letter from a white brother in Texas. He writes: "All Christians know that the colored people will receive equal rights eventually, but it is possible that you are in too great a religious hurry. It has taken Christianity almost two thousand years to accomplish what it has. The teachings of Christ take time to come to earth." Such an attitude stems from a tragic misconception of time, from the strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively. More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.

By Lauren R. Stanley

What does it say about the state of dialogue in the Episcopal Church when it takes the president of the United States to remind us how to engage in civil discourse?

President Obama, speaking at the University of Notre Dame, asked, “As citizens of a vibrant and varied democracy, how do we engage in vigorous debate? How does each of us remain firm in our principles, and fight for what we consider right, without demonizing those with just as strongly held convictions on the other side?”

The president spoke about the failure of both sides in the debate over abortion to use “fair-minded words,” and said that he had learned through his own hard experience to “extend the same presumption of good faith to others” that had been extended to him. “Because when we do that,” he said, “that’s when we discover at least the possibility of common ground.”

We in the Episcopal Church, and indeed throughout the Anglican Communion, need to take the president’s words to heart. For in our disagreements – about the proposed Anglican Covenant, about sexuality, about diocesan border crossings, about interpretation of the Scriptures – we have lost the ability to be civil toward each other, or, to put it in theological terms, to give grace just as much as we demand it. We far too often forget – or decide not to – extend the presumption of good faith to others.

And in doing so, we lost the possibility of common ground.

Any scientist, any social scientist, any doctor will admit readily that there are more questions than answers in the universe. We understand so little about the human body, the universe, diseases; we are baffled by economics; we cannot explain the workings of the mind fully. We admit that we do not know so very much, and we pursue greater understanding every single minute of every single day.

In theology, we boldly proclaim the same thing: God, Anselm of Bec taught us, is that which nothing greater can be conceived. The Apostle Paul proclaimed that now we see only dimly. Jesus said we cannot know the mind of God. We know that God is unknowable to us in all of God’s godliness, because God is so much bigger than we are. This is core to our beliefs about God, because to know God fully in this life is to reduce God to our size, which theologically is illogical.

Then one side or the other in a debate turns right around and proclaims to know the mind of Christ. In our eagerness to be more right than someone else, we proclaim that we know – that we KNOW – what God wants of us, what God thinks of us, what God demands of us. And no matter what we are debating, we throw around our beliefs as though they were written in stone, and in doing so demonize those who disagree with us, claiming that they are, quite simply, WRONG!

In listening to various debates on various subjects over the last 17 years, ever since I became an Episcopalian, I have been appalled at the abject level to which much discourse descends on a regular basis. The name-calling, the demonization, the decided lack of grace toward anyone who disagrees … it is shameful, really, how low we will go in order to try to “win.”

On the worst days of our debates, when we truly are demonizing each other, I wait, trembling in fear rather like Job, for God’s thundering response to our arrogance in proclaiming that we have all the answers. I hear God’s voice raging from the whirlwind:

“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements – surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? Or who shut in the sea with doors, when it burst forth from the womb; when I made clouds its garment, and thick darkness its waddling band, and prescribed bounds for it, and set bars and doors, and said, ‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stayed?’ Have you commanded the morning since your days began, and caused the dawn to know its place, that it might take hold of the skirts of the earth, and the wicked be shaken out of it?”

The Lord God thundered on and on at poor Job and his companions, reminding them repeatedly that it was God, not them, who made the universe and everything in it.

“Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty?” God asked. “He who argues with God, let him answer it.”

God alone has all the answers. We, on the other hand, are mere creatures of God, unable to understand all that God plans or all that God wants of us.

And it is clear to me that God, who does have all the answers, is not pleased when we demonize each other. We are all created in the image of God; there are no “us's” and “thems” in God’s very good creation. All of us are God’s beloved children. The only way for us to live into the love in which and for which God created us is to literally do what Jesus commanded us to do, as he stood on the edge of eternity, at the omega of his earthly life so that we could enter the alphas of our eternal lives: Love one another as he loved us. We do not love one another when we denigrate each other simply because we disagree on topics for which we truly do not know the ultimate answers.

As we go into General Convention in July, perhaps it would behoove us to be a tad more humble, a tad more willing to admit that we do not have all the answers, a tad more generous toward those who disagree with us. If we were to give more grace, and be much less boastful of our so-called knowledge of God, particularly on the points where we are most certain (and least knowledgeable), we might find more of the common ground of which President Obama spoke the other day.

Admitting that God alone has all the answers, and that we are but mere creatures stumbling about in the dark, would be a good first step toward a more gracious, a more grace-filled, discussion.

The Rev. Lauren R. Stanley is an Appointed Missionary of the Episcopal Church from the Diocese of Virginia. She is a temporarily serving in the United States.

By Marshall Scott

"Are you sure you know what you're doing?"

It's a common enough question in our experience, isn't it? It comes up in a lot of situations. In a movie, it usually comes up in the last half hour or so, setting up the improbably difficult and brave resolution. In real life, I suppose it comes up as frequently as not around weddings. Sooner or later someone will ask bride and/or groom, “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

And of course we don't, or at least not entirely. I say that as one who has married, divorced, and married again. I grant you that I was less confused when I married again – now almost twenty one years ago, thank you! – but I can't say that even then I knew what I was doing. I simply knew better how to choose, and how to live well the promises that I made.

“Are you sure you know what you're doing?”

I have that question these days about the changes in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. Now, anyone who's read my work here and elsewhere will know I support the direction the Episcopal Church has chosen. That doesn't mean I have no qualms.

And my greatest qualm is that we have already lost forever the Anglican Communion that I knew, and that the Episcopal Church will soon follow. I don’t mean that the Church has departed from the Christian faith or the Anglican tradition. I don’t believe either of those assertions. It is, rather, that the shape and manner of the Communion has changed, and of the Episcopal Church will change.

For most of my career in the Episcopal Church we have been conscious of – even proud of - our vagueness. That’s not to say that it hasn't driven every one of us crazy at some point; but we cherished it nonetheless. It allowed us to always pray together, usually worship together, and sometimes work together despite our strongly-held differences. The old epigram associated "Broad-" churchmanship and "haziness;" but the truth was that we all took part in some haziness as a central strategy of living together in the Episcopal Church.

We’ve even managed to justify it as good theology. We would note that the problem with transubstantiation was not that God couldn’t do it that way, but that the Church couldn’t say that it was the only way God could have changed bread and wine into body and blood. Instead, we clung to the very lack of definition that is consubstantiation: "in, with, and under," but only God knew how.

With a nod to our Orthodox Christian siblings, we spoke of appreciating mystery, of believing in what God was doing without wanting to constrain our understanding of how God might do it – whatever it might be. As a result, we preferred not to define anything too specifically. In many ways, that worked for us marvelously well. How else could we have held Hooker and Laud, Jewell and Wesley, Cranmer and Keble and Maurice all somehow within the Anglican tradition?

Sadly, now we are being driven to specificity. We are being driven to it by those who don't want to associate with us, and who are at great pains to explain just why they don't want to associate. We are being driven, too, by those who want to associate, but want to be crystal clear about the terms of association. Look where we are now.

* We have seen the third draft of an Anglican Covenant. Members of the Drafting Committee have spoken of an intent to be inclusive, and the mechanisms of exclusion so prominent in earlier drafts have been muted. What hasn't changed, however, is the idea that there must be some clear and delimited description of common content to hold us together.

* Having largely despaired of an Anglican Covenant that would exclude what they see as the excesses of the Episcopal Church, the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans has essentially written their own; for what is the Jerusalem Declaration if not a confession in the ecclesiological sense, a core around which they might covenant?

* We wait on the meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council, to see how that gathering will react to the Covenant draft and the Windsor Continuation report, as well as to dissension within and without.

* The General Convention of the Episcopal Church will meet this summer, and it remains to be seen what we will say there, and how our statements will be received among Anglicans outside the Episcopal Church. There are many Deputies (I cannot say whether it is “most”) who are ready for the Episcopal Church to state clearly what it will do regarding the hot-button issues, and no longer wait to see who else in the Communion is prepared to listen and to talk.

And all of these raise in me a certain sense of - well, not dread so much as sorrow. Some have found us in the Episcopal Church (some both within and without) not sufficiently clear, and they have made themselves clear. In reaction we will make ourselves clear – it is human nature and, for many, virtual institutional necessity – but, as is always the case, in specifying some things in we will be specifying some things out. If we don't do it in the explication itself, it will come over the ensuing years of interpretation. It will change the manner, and perhaps the nature, of the Episcopal Church.

That’s not to say that we're doing the wrong thing, or that the Holy Spirit isn't in it. That may well be one of those strange ways in which God works. We have our New Testament in reaction to Marcion’s rejection of the Old Testament in service to a Gnostic dualism in Christian vestments. Our own Anglican tradition is grounded in important efforts to explain who we are not and why: Hooker’s discourse on why we’re not Puritans, and Jewel’s on why we’re not Roman. The Council of Trent happened in reaction to all that Reformation fervor; and if we're not convinced just how much the Holy Spirit was in that Council, our Roman siblings certainly are.

Nor is it wrong to do something when you can't know exactly what you’re doing. I entered marriage – both times – in good faith, with determination to do what I could to make it work. The fact that in my first marriage things didn’t work as I had hoped isn't to say there is something wrong with marriage itself, or that God couldn't have been working in it. I continue to be convinced that God was then, even as I am convinced that God is working in my marriage now.

As we understand things, only God knows the future. We are always stepping forward in faith. Tomorrow may bring the proverbial bus, or the apocalyptic meteor, or the Kingdom of God. All I can do today is my best to follow where God calls me.

But until the Kingdom comes, those results will always be mixed, with losses as well as gains. In our times now we in the Episcopal Church are indeed seeking to follow where God calls us. Unfortunately, in our times now voices around us and within us push us out of our hazy breadth toward specificity; and coming from hazy breadth to specificity will change us. However righteous most of us may find the result, there will be those who embrace it and those who want no part of it; those who claim victory and those who feel lost.

That’s why I feel that, in a way, we might lose ourselves, even as we win the battle. In resisting becoming the Church that some want us to be, we will not simply stay the Church we are. We may well become more the Church that we want, but we will not stay the Church we are. We will have more clarity on a host of details, from how we understand how property is held in trust for the whole Church to what we mean by the phrase "abandonment of communion;" but we will discover ourselves a different church in the process.

And that's not wrong, either; for it has to as true for the Church as it is for her members that salvation comes in losing our lives for the sake of the Gospel. That doesn’t mean we won’t have some sorrow at that loss. I expect that soon we will determine that we can no longer, as the Episcopal Church, remain “broad and hazy.” It may well be a step toward the Kingdom. It will come, I pray, in our response to the leading of the Spirit. Still, to tell you the truth, I will miss it.

The Rev. Marshall Scott is a chaplain in the Saint Luke’s Health System, a ministry of the Diocese of West Missouri. A past president of the Assembly of Episcopal Healthcare Chaplains, and an associate of the Order of the Holy Cross, he keeps the blog Episcopal Chaplain at the Bedside.

By Lauren R. Stanley

A group of 15 Episcopal bishops issued a statement last week that is without a doubt mind-boggling. It simply does not make sense.

These Communion Partner bishops, along with three Episcopal clergy who are members of the conservative Anglican Communion Institute, claim that there is, in reality, no Episcopal Church as it has existed since 1785. They claim that the Episcopal Church is nothing but a “voluntary association of equal dioceses.” They claim that dioceses are independent, and that bishops hold all of the power. They claim that the Presiding Bishop, the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, is not a metropolitan and has no authority.

In essence, what they are saying is that they do not belong to the greater community but rather are entities unto themselves, with all authority given to them.

Nothing binds us together, they claim, other than a mere desire to be bound together. No canons, no constitution, in essence, no Book of Common Prayer – nothing. In citing the history of the founding of the Episcopal Church at the end of the American Revolution, they somehow manage to twist that history to show that dioceses pre-existed the national church, and as such, somehow have no need of the national church. Dioceses, they say, “are both historically and ontologically prior to the Constitution and the General Convention.” But considering that only one of the 15 signatory bishops comes from an original diocese of the Episcopal Church (there were nine of them), it’s hard to figure out what these bishops mean. With the exception of South Carolina, all of the other dioceses came into being well after the Episcopal Church was founded, and all were founded at the direction of the Episcopal Church. So when they argue that the Episcopal Church doesn’t matter because dioceses predate it, even when most diocese do not in fact go back that far, they are doing nothing but going in circles.

Their arguments make about as much sense as the Commonwealth of Virginia saying it doesn’t really belong to the United States and thus can do whatsoever it pleases, regardless of what Congress, the administration and the Supreme Court says.

But that’s not all that boggles my mind over this statement.

What I also don’t get is that these same bishops are setting themselves up for a long, hard fall. Because if these dioceses and bishops can do whatever they want, then so can the rest of us. If this argument truly is what it seems to be – a justification for allowing individual bishops and dioceses to sign onto the yet-to-be-fully-known Anglican Covenant, regardless of what the Episcopal Church decides – then it means that those who do not want the Covenant (because we view it as non-Anglican, as still too confining, as still much too concerned with punishment and lacking in grace, as still ignoring the history of the Anglican Communion and its commitment to preaching to Gospel everywhere while at the same time honoring the exigencies of time and place), then we can reject it. Because according to the bishops’ arguments, everyone gets to do whatever they want. And no one can stop anyone else – because we are not one body, not one Church. We’re just a bunch of individual dioceses lacking any cohesion.

That’s why the arguments put forth by these bishops simply make no sense. They claim they want to remain in The Episcopal Church, which is good. But they also claim that contrary to history, contrary to their vows, contrary to the canons and constitutions, all is not as it seems, and they can change both history and the facts to fit their own desires.

What is it that they really want? I don't know. I can't tell, even after reading their statement numerous times. They quote extensively from the canons of both the Roman Catholic and Serbian Orthodox churches, and cite the governing documents of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Presbyterian Church and the United Methodist Church, ignoring the fact that we are none of those. Each of those denominations has its own polity, which is different from ours. Their argument compares apples to oranges and says, “See?”

The statement also claims that the diocese is the “fundamental unit of The Episcopal Church,” and as such, individual dioceses can make individual decisions, regardless of what a national or provincial church decides. It seems as though, in order to get what they want, these bishops are willing to let the Episcopal Church descend into chaos.

And then, finally, there is the most telling sentence of all, the last one of the document: “We intend to exercise our episcopal authority to remain constituent members of the Anglican Communion and will continue to speak out on these issues as necessary.”

This statement isn’t about seeking a way out of a crisis, as it claims. It is, clearly, a power grab meant to ensure that these bishops not only can have their cake and eat it too, they can have and eat our cake as well.

I may not understand what these bishops are doing. But I do know this: Simply claiming that up is down and down is up doesn’t make either true. Likewise, simply claiming that dioceses are independent and not subordinate to the Episcopal Church doesn’t make either of those statements true either.

The Rev. Lauren R. Stanley is an Appointed Missionary of the Episcopal Church from the Diocese of Virginia. She is a temporarily serving in the United States.

By Lauren R. Stanley

Last January, the Executive Council made a very difficult decision: Cutting out the money the Episcopal Church pledged toward the Millennium Development Goals. That 0.7 percent line item totaled $924,000 in the last triennial budget.

Now, considering that since the last General Convention, much was made of the Episcopal Church’s working hard to make the MDGs become a reality around the world, cutting that money from the proposed budget, which is but a draft being forwarded to General Convention 2009, seems quite harsh, not to mention contradictory to our very ethos.

But with the economic times being what they are, with money seemingly disappearing overnight, with the endowment and pledges falling, what else can be done?

To be fair to the Executive Council, this decision was not made lightly, and it was not the only portion of the proposed budget to take a hit.

But just because we don’t have the revenues right now does not mean that we can’t have them. It simply means we haven’t tried hard enough, or been creative enough, in our teaching of stewardship, in our presentation of the Gospel, in our fund-raising not for ourselves but for God and God’s beloved children.

So here’s an idea that if we were bold enough to try, just might help: Pennies from Heaven. (No eye-rolling, no sniggering, please. Pennies may not have much value on their own, but if you put enough of them together, you get a lot, and I mean a lot of money. So control your laughter and pay attention, please, because this could work, if we all bought into it.)

Here are the numbers: We have approximately 2 million members in the Episcopal Church. If we were to set up a program and ask each person to set aside a mere 25 cents per day – just one quarter, less than the cost of a newspaper, less than the cost of just about anything except a gumball these days – the Church would gain an additional $182.5 million – per year! That’s more than three times the proposed budget for 2010 (which is $53.1 million). And what would it cost each person? $91.25 per year. We’re not talking major money here … we’re literally talking pennies per person.

OK, so maybe getting all 2 million members to participate is going to be tough. So let’s say that only half of our members participate. That would still be $91.25 million.

Still too optimistic? Well, what if only one quarter of our members participated? Net gain: $46.6 million.

Maybe this is all pie-in-the-sky. So let’s drop the numbers even more. Let’s ask each person to give 1 cent – one penny – per day. How do the numbers work out then?

Two million members each participate, each giving a paltry $3.65 per year. That still nets the Church $7.3 million. One million participants: $3.65 million. Half a million participants? $1.825 million.

Which is nearly double what was cut from the Church’s budget for the MDGs.

In other words, asking each of us to give mere pennies per day would more than make up the cuts made to fulfill the MDGs.

(If the numbers sound staggering, and you’re wondering why the MDGs have to get all the money from a program like this, my answer is simple: The MDGs don’t. Raise a $182.5 million and you get to split it up: Fifty percent to the parish, 25 percent to the diocese, 25 percent to the world through the MDGs. It doesn’t matter; it would still be a bounty worthy of the Lord.)

Is it a crazy idea, asking each member to make a commitment of this kind, too pie-in-the-sky? Perhaps. But how else is the Church going to fulfill the Gospel imperatives that are so eloquently expressed in those goals?

Yes, the Church has a lot of work to do. We haven’t sold the idea of the MDGs as well as we should have or could have. (The April 12 Living Church reported that in response to a survey on its news service website, an astonishing 67 percent of participants said the MDGs are “not on their parish’s radar.”) And we certainly haven’t sold the idea of giving to the Church very well, either. After all, how many of us – lay and clergy – actually tithe from our total income?

But just because we haven’t sold stewardship as well as we should have doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. Because this is a program that could work, if we were serious about it. If we asked each member to contribute pennies per day – not to write one extra check per year, but to intentionally put their pennies in their piggy banks or used water bottles or cardboard boxes or whatever they want to use, so that each and every day, each and every one of us stops to think and pray about those in need – this program would be successful beyond our wildest dreams.

In the last six months, I’ve heard from dozens of friends, lay and clergy, about how their parishes had to cut budgets, how stewardship campaigns are so very hard because the economy is in a freefall, how difficult it is to stand up in front of a congregation and announce that the budget is $40,000 or $50,000 or $60,000 short. I’ve heard anger, I’ve heard regret, I’ve heard fear. And I know that if I were sitting in the pew and my leaders told me we needed another $40,000 (or whatever the sum would be), I’d panic. Because I don’t have that kind of money. And I’d feel regret, and I’d worry. But if those same leaders stood before me and told me, “OK, here’s what we’re short, and here’s how it breaks down: We need another 25 cents per day from you,” I’d say, “OK, that I can do.”

Even more, by asking each of us to give this small amount, so that it takes all of us to accomplish the goal, each of us knows that we are members of a community, that we don't have to solve the problem all on our own. We have a whole capital-C Church to help us do this. It’s not just about putting a roof over our heads or making sure we fix the church basement leak; this is about doing God’s work and caring for God’s people wherever they are.

Our problem is not that we are in a serious economic recession. Our problem is that we simply don’t solve problems the right way. We look at the biggest picture possible and overwhelm our people and ourselves, and then … well, then we fall short of our goals and things like support for the MDGs gets cut from a shrinking budget.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. We can do so much better, if we simply stop overwhelming ourselves with the seemingly impossible and remember that all things are possible with God.

It’s not as though we have a choice, to be honest. From the very beginning of time, God has instructed us to care for those in need. Terence E. Fretheim, professor of Old Testament at Luther Seminary, speaks eloquently of these imperatives in his book The Pentateuch. He writes that Deuteronomy especially understands that human life is at odds with God’s intentions for creation, and that the law is the “divine ordering at the cosmic level” for what happens in the social sphere. Thus, he says, Deuteronomy “focuses on the stability of the community and its flourishing” and cites the “recurring refrain: the widow, the orphan, and the resident alien.”

“Caring for the disadvantaged,” Fretheim writes, “is more a theological matter for Israel than a sociological or political one; these commands come from God above, not from the government, and the integrity of God’s creation is at stake in the way in which these people are cared for.” And then he quotes from Deuteronomy 15: “Do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted toward your needy neighbor. You should rather open your hand … Give liberally and be ungrudging when you do so, for on this account the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake. Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you, ‘Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor ...’”

Opening our hands to our poor and needy neighbors: that’s the goal of the MDGs. That’s what the Church formally committed to at last General Convention: Working with the United Nations and the rest of the world to end extreme poverty and hunger; achieve universal education; promote gender equality and empower women; reduce child mortality; improve maternal health; combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; ensure environmental stability; and develop global partnerships for development.

Those are the things we’re giving up, simply because of financial constraints. But when Jesus commanded us to care for the least of our brothers and sister, he didn’t add the codicil “but only if you can afford it.” He simply told us to do it. So we really don’t have the right to get excited about doing God’s work in one triennium and then walk away from that work the next triennium simply because we think we don’t have the money.

We do have the money … one quarter, or even just one penny, at a time. Together, in community, we can do all the things that God has commanded us to do.

The Rev. Lauren R. Stanley is an Appointed Missionary of the Episcopal Church from the Diocese of Virginia, temporarily serving in the United States.

By Sam Candler

In times of controversy in the Episcopal Church, and even in times of relative calm, someone inevitably makes the accusation or the slight joke that Henry VIII (and his search for a suitable wife) started the Episcopal Church. Thus, I require all my confirmation classes and any audience who hears my presentations on the history and theology of Anglican Christianity to repeat the same line: Henry VIII did not start the Anglican Church (or the Episcopal Church.)

You pass the class if you can say that simple sentence. You pass with honors if you can state who actually did found the Episcopal Church: Jesus Christ founded the Episcopal Church. The Episcopal Church, developed from the Church of England, and an integral member of the Anglican Communion of Churches, is part of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church of Jesus Christ.

That church, started by Jesus Christ, has included inevitable conflict. Even the beautiful first century Christian community involved conflict, which we can read about clearly in The Book of Acts (see Acts 15:2). One of the great apostles, St. Peter, was opposed to his face by the other great missionary apostle, St. Paul (see Galatians 2:11). From then on, every Christian community has lived through conflict. Sometimes that conflict was minor, and sometimes it has been major (see The Great Schism of 1054).

The Anglican tradition of Christianity, evolving as it did far from Rome and the more established centers of western civilization, has always seen its share of conflict and debate. Usually, that conflict has emerged from competing sources of authority. Who, or what, is the final authority in the Anglican Church? From the fifth century onwards, ecclesiastical authority rotated from the Archbishop of Canterbury, to whomever the reigning monarch might be, to the Roman Pope; after the Reformation, that revolving locus of authority included the common people themselves.

Consider the first Archbishop of Canterbury, St. Augustine (of Canterbury, not of Hippo), who landed at Canterbury in 597 AD. He was the first official Roman missionary bishop in what we now call England; but a Celtic form of Christianity, centered around local abbots and monasteries, was already present. St. Patrick had already returned to Ireland; St. David had evangelized Wales; and the great St. Columba had already founded Iona in the north country. One of the early English synods, held at Whitby in 664, was convened over a concern for authority; would the established Church follow Roman or Celtic Christian customs? They chose Rome at that time.

Thus, the question of authority was settled for a season, but not for all time. Jump forward to the great William the Conqueror in 1066. Long before Henry VIII, William the Conqueror also considered himself the head of the Church of England. He convened church councils (not the Pope or the Archbishop of Canterbury), he nominated bishops and abbots and invested them with ring and staff; and he refused to allow the Pope to interfere in what he considered the king’s business.

Later, Thomas a Beckett would lose his life by crossing King Henry II. In those days (11th and 12th Centuries), the King of England would often refuse to allow the Archbishop of Canterbury inside the country (Archbishops Lanfranc, Anselm, and Thomas a Beckett were all exiled at one time or another).

The Anglican Church was living through authority issues long before Henry VIII arrived on the scene. And, of course, the Anglican Church continues to live through authority issues. At our best, the Anglican Church and the Episcopal Church have learned to live through authority issues with grace.

In the great Protestant Reformation issues of the sixteenth century, Henry VIII actually never abandoned the theology of the Roman Catholic Church. In fact, we wrote a treatise against Martin Luther in 1521 which earned the title “Defender of the Faith” for Henry – and thus for all the rest of his succesors to this day! When he appealed to the pope for annulment from his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, Henry was concerned far more for a suitable male heir for the kingdom than for the new Protestant theology (yes, he was also concerned for Anne Boleyn!). In another era, the Pope might have granted his request easily; but at this time, the weak pope was under the sway of the holy Roman emperor, Charles V – who was the nephew of Catharine of Aragon. There was no way the pope was going to offend Charles V by annulling the marriage of his aunt!

If there is any one person (other than Jesus) who did start –or who best represents—the Anglican tradition of Christianity, it is Elizabeth I. Reigning from 1559-1603, just after England had been swung violently back and forth between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, it was she who found a way for the Anglican Church to be both Catholic and Protestant. She represented a way to resolve conflict gracefully in the church.

At its best, the Anglican tradition of Christianity resolves conflict gracefully. And it does so, rarely by taking “the middle way,” which has long been another name for the Episcopal Church (the “middle way” between Catholicism and Protestantism). I believe the Anglican tradition of Christianity often finds truth on both sides of theological and cultural disputes. The Anglican Communion of Churches finds “the comprehensive way,” affirming truth on both the traditional and the progressive wings of Christian community. The Anglican Communion of Churches might better be called the “via comprehensiva,” the comprehensive way.

I believe this “comprehensive way” was responsible for resolving other conflicts in Episcopal Church history, too. It explains how the early Protestant Church in the United States of America could be related to the Church of England but also separate from it. It was the comprehensive way that held the Episcopal Church together during the tragedy of the American Civil War. The comprehensive character of Anglicanism and the Episcopal Church also enabled us to meet the rise of science and higher literary criticism in the nineteenth century with grace and faith. We found a way to read the Bible with both faith and reason.

The Christian Church inevitably involves conflict. Usually, there are persons of good Christian faith on both sides of the conflict. The particular Anglican tradition of Christianity is a way of dealing with conflict gracefully. Obviously, our history has not always been clearly graceful. Nor is it always graceful right now. But the tradition which guides us is truly a graceful one.

From generation to generation, the Episcopal Church seeks to honor the universal claim of the Christian gospel while also honoring local authority and indigenous faith. That is another inherent challenge – and conflict—in all churches. How can we be obedient to both global and local authority? How can we honor both the gospel and our local culture? It is a journey and task entrusted to us by our Lord Jesus Christ himself.

When we remember Jesus, the founder of the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion of Churches, let us also remember that our faith declares a comprehensive truth about him, too. Jesus Christ, we say, was both fully divine and fully human. Orthodox Christianity refuses to choose one nature over the other; Jesus is fully both. Jesus Christ is not some middle ground between divinity and humanity; Jesus Christ is comprehensive of all divinity and all humanity. That incarnational faith is the graceful style of Anglican Christianity, too.

The Very Rev. Sam Candler is dean of St. Philip's Cathedral in Atlanta. He helped start that city’s interfaith group, and leads regular community bible studies. His sermons and reflections on “Good Faith and Common Good” can be found on the Cathedral web site.

By Luiz Coelho

A couple days ago, I was overhearing a conversation (yes, I do that) between two women on “churches” and “religion.” Basically, one of them made a comment about being a Reform Jew and finding it very hard to deal with the Conservative Jewish school where she was working as an intern. The other woman, then, told a little bit about her experience as a child of a Southern Baptist father and an Episcopalian mother, and of being raised in the Episcopal Church.

Believe me, I am not the “gossipy” kind of person, but that conversation did attract my attention, after all, it was about the Episcopal Church. And when the Jewish woman mentioned that in Reform Judaism they had the freedom to question while in Conservative Judaism things were much stricter, the other one replied “Yes, I imagine it is just like being Episcopalian as opposed to being Southern Baptist.” I chuckled. I had to!

I have to admit that sometimes I succumb to the dangers of “episcolatry.” Let me explain. Not rarely we are taught, in the Episcopal Church (and, to a certain degree, in other Anglican Provinces), that we have freedom of thought, that we use reason, that we practice inclusion, that we are fighting for a change, and that we are not “fundamentalists” (a word that has been used both by Liberals and Conservatives at times, with no clear boundaries), among many other great things. Nevertheless, the pride that emerges from all of that often consumes me and not rarely I catch myself bearing a silly sense of superiority, almost as if I had find the “True” Church.

Lent has just started and it might be a bit cliché to revisit all the basics about this season, in a sort of Lent 101 course. But I believe, however, that in many cases we grasp much less than we should about this season of fasting and repentance. I tend to focus more on fasts. In fact, I was probably born on a diet, because I recall doing them since I was a child. So, it is not extremely hard for me to give up on edible temptations for a while. It is the repentance part that drives me crazy, and by reflecting upon some of the daily Lenten readings, I realized that I am most likely still far away from the ideal Jesus shows in the Gospels.

This is probably why I chuckled to the conversation I mentioned before. It is not a problem to understand that all of our struggles and achievements as a Church draw us near to the Gospel. The problem lies when we question why the “uncool fundamentalists” (among others) claim to sit at Christ's table. I have to admit that, not rarely, I have acted as the pharisees who criticize Jesus for having a meal with tax collectors. Yes, this passage, which for years was used to justify the inclusion of those seen by the Church as impure (usually liberal-minded Christians), ended up being used by me in a rather curious opposite direction. In the midst of cyber-wars and name-calling, I might say that several times I felt tempted to look down on people who, regardless of opinions or attitudes towards any of the hot topics or people en vogue, are marked as Christ's own and are just like myself: sinners in need of God's grace.

Lent might be, therefore, an appropriate period to repent from a fake sense of superiority that does us no good and in fact diverts our attention from what we are really called to do. Episcopalians or not, there is plenty of Christian ministry to be done around us. There are mouths to be fed, souls to be nurtured, people to be reached, gifts to be used and a life of service waiting for each one of us, whenever we are. Not rarely we will be criticized for claiming to be the sinners who sit at Christ's table, but that is far better than being the ones who feel “superior and clean,” and in no need of repentance. I still believe it is possible to speak with integrity and not succumb to such temptations. And this is what I have taken as my Lenten discipline. I know it is hard, and have no idea if it will work, but I am giving it a try.

So, my prayer is that, during this period of Lent, while we try to discern better what God's call in our life is, we can see every single person that we interact with as God's beloved child, and also as a potential brother or sister in Christ, in need of care, prayer and repentance.

Luiz Coelho, a seminarian from the Diocese of Rio de Janero, spends part of the year in the BFA program at the Savannah College of Art and Design. His Web site includes his art and his blog, Wandering Christian, on which he examines "Christianity in the third millennium, from a progressive, Latin American and Anglican point of view."

By Greg Jones

"Conceited, stubborn, over-sensitive, argumentative, infantile, pushy." This is how bible scholar Jerome Murphy-O'Connor describes the Church in Corinth to which Paul wrote the two letters now in our bibles. They were a frustrating and exasperating people, who seemed to misunderstand Paul's teaching at every turn. Murphy-O'Connor writes that "virtually every statement he made took root in their minds in a slightly distorted form." Yikes.

Lucky for us that Paul faced this crowd. Because he had to teach, and teach, and teach them, now we have the benefit of First and Second Corinthians. The basic situation in Corinth was a mixed body of folks, divided by ethnicity, idea and practice. They were highly partisan, and apparently loved to dissent and divide.

Well, it sounds likes Christians everywhere, at least from time to time. It seems like Christians are always struggling with a "Corinthian" tendency toward division and disunity. To be sure, in our denomination, and global Anglicanism, we've seen lots of it in the past six years, and certainly will see more. It is worth remembering that the Church of England broke ties with Rome in the middle 16th century over questions of authority and power. Over the next couple of centuries - a host of groups left the Church of England, whether Presbyterian, Quaker, Methodist, Baptist and so forth. In the 19th century, a small group of evangelical Episcopalians broke away and formed the Reformed Episcopal Church. (They believed that 'Romanizing germs' had infected the Episcopal Church and it was corrupt beyond repair -- opposing things like altar candles, priestly robes, and high sacramental doctrine.) In the late 20th century, several groups split away from the Episcopal Church - first over integration, then over the new prayer book and women's ordination. And now, of course, we see the chasm forming between those who seek to include glbt people into the full life of the Church, inclusive of marriage equality and ordination, and those who do not.

I believe that there is a way forward that preserves a maximum of unity and diversity, with integrity. I think that the Church will always be reforming its understandings of how God wants us to be - but I believe it can be done in such a way as to comprehend both a faithful respect for what has been received, and a faithful openness to "new wine." As I understand Paul, what is required of Corinthians as well as Episcopalians is that we die to self, pick up the cross, and follow the Son of God. In my view, the community which does this, will also be able to maintain a glorious degree of both differentiation and unity within itself. Even when faced with questions which are very difficult to come to an accord about.

The way through the dilemma of Us vs. Them, and We're Right and They're Wrong is to remember the mark on our heads. For we who have been marked as Christ's own forever, are not permitted to ask any more, "How do I get what I want?' We instead get to ask, "How do We obey our Lord?" We instead get to ask, "How do we discern together what God wants, and how do we get there?"

Frankly, I'm afraid Episopalians simply do not remember that we are called to be a people submitted to each other as to Christ. I believe we very often identify ourselves in individualistic, then congregational, then diocesan terms, then General Convention terms; and then very little in terms of the wider Communion, let alone our ecumenical and interfaith partners.

As we approach General Convention, I simply pray that we be mindful of our primary identity as a people of God in Christ, called to submit to another as to Christ. I don't know what the way forward will look like - vis a vis the inclusion of glbt persons in matters of marriage equality or holy orders - or vis a vis the Anglican Communion and beyond. I would take great joy, however, if we could indeed find that forward route while maintaining the maximum degree of unity in the love of Christ. It would be so refreshing to pull off what so many are calling impossible. It would be so exciting to manage to get through this with the bonds of affection not only unbroken, but strengthened.

There, I said it.

The Rev. Samuel Gregory Jones ('Greg') is rector of St. Michael's in Raleigh, N.C. and the bass player in indie-rock band The Balsa Gliders - whose fourth studio release is available on iTunes. He blogs at Anglican Centrist.

By Matt Gobush

Mention Haiti and images of overcrowded shantytowns, fleeing boatpeople or voodoo dolls come to mind. To borrow from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, it is a land that has been seen by Americans “through a glass, darkly” ever since rebellious slaves established the world’s first black republic there more than two hundred years ago.

Many would be surprised to learn, however, that Haiti is home to the largest and, by some measures, the strongest diocese within the Episcopal Church. This certainly came as a surprise to me when I accompanied Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori on her pastoral visit to the Diocese of Haiti last November. Our five-day pilgrimage, in fact, was filled with the unexpected.

Not unexpected were the impoverished conditions we saw during our trip. Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, with 80 percent of its seven million citizens struggling to survive on less than two dollars a day. Over half of Haitians are illiterate and 80 percent unemployed. About 42 percent of Haitian children under age five are malnourished, and nearly all are medically underserved, with only one doctor available for every 10,000 citizens.

These grim figures are reflected in the sad images that greeted us when we arrived: ravines honeycombed with cinder block slums; gnarled streets choked with traffic and littered with debris; roadside landfills crawling with scavenging children and farm animals; hillsides shorn of vegetation and carved by primitive farm tools; and dilapidated bridges are puddled with floodwaters from raging rivers that recently submerged them.

One would expect a dispirited people and dysfunctional church to inhabit a country in such desperate straits. Our traveling party discovered, however, that despite history’s hardships, hope springs eternal among the Haitian people, and the Spirit dwells within the Episcopal diocese there. Throughout our trip, we bore unexpected witness to Haiti’s proud heritage, intrepid spirit and deep faith.

These qualities have helped make the Diocese of Haiti one of the crown jewels of our communion. Although the Episcopal Church is mostly comprised of congregations within the United States, it is truly an international church, with dioceses found from Honduras to Europe, Hong Kong to Haiti. Haiti is the largest diocese overall, ministering to more souls and administering more institutions than any other.

Education has been the diocese’s primary ministry since it was founded in 1861 by Bishop James Theodore Holly, a native of Washington, D.C., who said, “To use the Bible and Prayer Book, one at least must know how to read.” In a country where public schools serve only 15 percent of the youth, the Episcopal Church plays a crucial role in providing young Haitians with knowledge, skills, and Christian education to find gainful employment and reinvest in their native country. The diocese currently manages 254 schools educating more than 80,000 young people. There are nearly two educational institutions for every congregation – a ratio second to none throughout the entire Church.

The diocese performs the Church’s healing ministry in Haiti through numerous health clinics and medical facilities, including the nation’s only hospital and school devoted to handicapped children, and its first nursing school, which will graduate its inaugural class next year. God’s glory is also reflected in the ministry of the Holy Trinity Philharmonic Orchestra, the pride of Haiti’s music community.

The Episcopal Church’s success in Haiti is due to its strong leadership, vital partnerships with dioceses in the United States, and unique standing in Haitian society. Its clear leadership structure enables it to be a responsive and responsible partner with the government and non-governmental organizations; its autonomy gives it the local latitude to effectively address Haiti’s unique challenges. As a result, as President Rene Preval noted in his meeting with our group, the “church often has greater credibility than the state.”

Haiti’s bishop, the Right Rev. Jean Zache Duracin, makes clear that the diocese’s success is not possible without the prayers, partnerships and financial support of numerous congregations within the wider church. Support from the U.S. government is also crucial to enabling the people of Haiti to regain their footing after a year in which food riots forced the prime minister to resign and four tropical storms wreaked havoc on the economy. Cancellation of Haiti’s $1.3 billion in debt to international lenders and to wealthy countries (including about $20 million in bilateral loans to the U.S. Government) is a moral and economic imperative. Extension of the H.O.P.E. Act providing trade preferences for Haitian exports would also help.

The “glass” Paul refers to in his epistle is not a window, but a mirror. As I traveled through Haiti and the darkness lifted, I realized Episcopalians throughout our church could learn from Haiti – about the blessing of faith and the power of communion to achieve good works during even the most challenges times. It is a lesson we should all reflect upon.

Matt Gobush is a parishioner of Christ Church Georgetown and serves on the Episcopal Church’s Standing Commission for Anglican and International Peace with Justice Concerns. This essay appears in the January/February issue of Washington Window.

By Phillip C. Cato

Much of the discussion, some of it quite impassioned, about the prospects of a new Province of the Anglican Communion being established in North America misses the mark.

In the Boy Scouts you are taught, when attempting to see an object in the dark, to look to the side of the area where you believe the object to be and the object will become more visible. There is, I believe, a wider applicability here.

Blogs, newspaper, and periodical articles have focused attention on the legality of parishes, dioceses, clergy, and bishops breaking away from the Episcopal Church, or on their announcing that they are putting themselves under another bishop’s or province’s jurisdiction. Not much is made of laity doing this because the laity has always been able to move around with impunity.

Objections have frequently been raised that the clergy who are departing are in violation of canon law and the promises that they made at their ordination. Parishes and dioceses are said to be in violation of their legal ties to the larger entities to which they belong, and which, in many cases, established them.

A lot of the discourse revolves around the issue of who owns the church property, and, for the moment, the property goes with the majority in this dispute. Dioceses are aggrieved, and have filed lawsuits, very expensive lawsuits, to retain what they claim to be their property.

All the talk about separation and schism creates anxiety among clergy and the laity and some bishops feel obligated to find ways to reassure them, claiming that the likelihood of these breakaways receiving permission to establish their own province is very unlikely. The bishops and other commentators even count potential votes among provincial leaders, betraying their own anxiety in this matter.

Much of this fretting is, in my view, the consequence of excessive concentration on the details of this de facto schism and its potential spread. The inability to see the real issue results from looking straight at it in the dark.

Look to the side. When you do, it will become apparent that there is no need to stampede or die of fright.

Long ago, I learned that in a strident controversy, it is instructive to grant the adversary their point in its entirety, and then step back and look at it as calmly as possible. Those who take strong and unbending positions are, more often than not, not all that sure of their claims. Else, why all the energy being put into the defense? The next step is to ask the question, “If they get their way entirely, what would the world (or my world) look like?” If necessary, the next question is, “Can I live in this world?” [There are more steps but they are irrelevant in this case, as will become clear.]

In this instance, I have concluded that the last question is not necessary. We will not have to live in that world, not because someone, like the Archbishop of Canterbury or the Anglican Consultative Council, will not allow it to happen. We will not have to live in it because the proposed province is completely untenable.

A philosopher might say that it will collapse because of its internal contradictions; the truth is more mundane and banal.

In this province, as proposed, we find strident Evangelicals, Charismatics, Anglo-Catholics, those who allow for the ordination of women to the priesthood and those who regard this as a metaphysical and theological and Biblical impossibility, those who were ordained and consecrated in the canonical ways of national churches in the Anglican Communion and those who have received express consecration in total disregard of any canons, those who are conflicted over the theological issue of Baptismal regeneration, those who have flirted with Rome and those who are of a radical Protestant bent, and a notorious collection of massive egos, unlikely to concede much in the way of theological, ecclesiastical, or Biblical views. All have shown complete disregard for their ordination vows and canonical obligations, and lay claim to property they do not own.

In your most generous imagination, can you conceive of such a coalition surviving? I cannot.

Looking to the side, and seeing the object in the dark, I feel quite reassured.

The Rev. Phillip C. Cato is a retired priest of the Diocese of Washington. His current work is in bioethics, for the National Institutes of Health, and professional ethics.

By George Clifford

This is simply a reminder that what we are called to is not our stuff. This is a cleansing by fire. - Brother Joseph Brown, one of seven Benedictine Anglican monks who lived at Mount Calvary Monastery in Montecito, which was destroyed by fires that swept through southern California (New York Times, November 19)

I wonder how many Christians really understand Brother Joseph’s remark?

My recent essay at the Episcopal Café, “An Alternative Province? Why Not?” sparked a surprisingly large and disappointing response, leaving me pessimistic about the number who understood Brother Joseph’s comment. The response to my essay was surprising in that a couple of conservative websites republished the post suggesting their approval. I had not expected conservatives to find my perspective agreeable. Let me be clear. Those leaving the Episcopal Church (like those remaining) are equally wrong to pursue property issues in the courts. Indeed, departing dissidents should honor the branch of Christendom that heretofore has nurtured them in the faith and depart by respecting a polity that assigns moral (and arguably legal) ownership of property and other assets to the national church through its dioceses. Individuals are free to depart; Church canons provide no mechanism for a parish or diocese to depart, as these are integral elements of the national body. Attempting to secede violates the trust that binds us together as God's family.

Those departing need to remember that even as their views about gender determining eligibility for ordination or the morality of same sex relationships do not put them outside the pale of the body of Christ, the converse is also true: those with whom they disagree remain part of the body of Christ. None of those issues, no matter how passionate or strong one’s views are, is a litmus test or definition of Christian identity.

Funds given to the Church are just that, given. That is, monies once donated become the Church’s property. Who contributed the money or other assets is irrelevant in Anglican polity. Once received, the resources belong to the Church for use in God's work, a truth symbolized in terming donations received in worship “offerings” and the priest blessing them.

Frittering away precious resources in a physically and spiritually starving world is equally scandalous, whether the Church or dissidents pay the legal bills. My local newspaper’s front page this morning featured two stories that nearly brought me to tears: one on a teenaged Eagle Scout allegedly murdered by four friends and another on the Zimbabwean cholera outbreak. Court battles over who owns what Church property provides no hope in either situation. Nor will court battles, regardless of who prevails, change anyone’s views about the issues that divide us. Courts and lawyers are important instruments of social justice; however, the scriptures exhort Christians to resolve their disputes without litigation.

The Presiding Bishop has helpfully observed that departures number only about one hundred thousand in a Church of twenty-three hundred thousand. Those leaving are a small percentage of the whole Church and their exit in no way threatens the Episcopal Church’s existence or vitality. Furthermore, the Archbishop of Canterbury has emphatically clarified that those who have left, should they wish to become an Anglican province, must comply with all established procedures for achieving that status, a process requiring years. In sum, the remarks of the Most Reverends Jefferts Schori and Williams suggest that the Episcopal Church should focus on its ministry and mission rather than devoting substantial and unwarranted time and energy to the sad but inevitable departure of the unhappy and bigoted few.

Normally, an author feels gratified when his or her writing attracts considerable attention. Yet the obvious depth of attachment, both among those departing and those remaining in the Episcopal Church, to property and other assets disappointed me. Material resources are important. However, my experience and observation is that human commitment and vision, not lack of material resources, are the real limits on Church ministry and mission. People, within and without the Church, respond enthusiastically and generously when afforded meaningful opportunities to engage in life-giving ministry and mission.

The relative handful of those leaving with their mutually incompatible theologies, to their dismay, has not caused the Episcopal Church’s numerical decline over the last fifty years. Part of the real explanation for that decline is that a Church caricatured as the party of the wealthy and powerful at prayer should expect inner conflict and pain when it strives to incarnate more fully God's inclusive love that transcends wealth, race, gender orientation, ethnicity, etc. Part of the explanation is also that we Episcopalians have focused on internal issues and institutional maintenance (conventions trying to legislate theology and ethics; attempting to preserve an aging, poorly located physical plant; perpetuating once useful activities that no longer serve today’s needs; etc.) rather than ministry and mission.

Perhaps, God has a badly needed message for us in the sad departure of our more narrow-minded brothers and sisters, a poignant reminder to prioritize ministry and mission ahead of institutional maintenance. Like the monks of Mount St. Calvary whose hospitality and ministry I have enjoyed and cherished, all parties in the current controversies can benefit from a painful and costly lesson in keeping one’s priorities correctly ordered. The monks will continue to serve, moving in the direction they sense God leading. The Episcopal Church should do the same, declaring the truth about property ownership but prepared to exercise costly grace in our actions rather than to compromise our priorities. Now is the time, the season, for us in the Episcopal Church to respond to God's vision for us, God's calling, to incarnate Christ's inclusive, life-giving love for all, at home and abroad. To do otherwise has intangible costs that far exceed the dollar value of any disputed assets.

The Rev. George Clifford, Diocese of North Carolina, served as a Navy chaplain for twenty-four years He taught philosophy at the U. S. Naval Academy and ethics at the Postgraduate School. He blogs at Ethical Musings.

By Deirdre Good and Julian Sheffield

We got married last week.

We got married in Connecticut where the first same-sex marriage license was issued on Nov. 12th, 2008, following a court decision summarized by Richard Just in The New Republic (including a link to the original 85-page decision). We were going to get married in Massachusetts, where the constitutional prohibition against marriages of non-residents was overturned last summer, but Connecticut was so much closer to home, and frankly, that decision was so brilliant we felt drawn to Connecticut.

Two aspects of the decision stand out for us. First, the decision set the "same-sex marriage devalues heterosexual marriage" objection on its head. On the contrary, the decision argued, saying that a civil union is equivalent to a marriage and therefore non-discriminatory is what downgrades marriage. "Civil union" simply does not carry the weight of social benefits and responsibilities that have accrued to marriage over the centuries, and therefore civil union cannot be equivalent to marriage.

Second, the decision addressed the issue of whether such a ruling should be made by the courts or by the legislature by determining the status of homosexuals as a "quasi-suspect" class requiring legal intervention to achieve parity because judicial processes were unlikely to provide equal rights.

So, we've been living as a monogamous couple for 16.5 years now, rather like the landless working poor of past centuries who didn't have the means or necessity to ratify their status in a church (hence the recognition of common law marriage for property rights). And many people who congratulate us go on immediately to ask, "But doesn't this just feel like a formality?"

To which we say, No. Emphatically. True, our union was blessed in a church 16 years ago, but this is different. This is an act of public witness, an exercise of public accountability, a participation in a universally recognized and honored status that confers legal, social, and emotional benefits and responsibilities. Granted, there are legal entities that do not yet recognize our right to be married, that narrowly define marriage in terms of exclusion, but that's their problem. We are married nonetheless. And because we are deeply optimistic, we hope we will always live somewhere that honors the fact of our marriage. Ironically, we are a bit schizoid at present, living in New York (which does honor our marriage) and Maine (which has both a domestic partnership law and a defense of marriage act) - but this too will pass. With each legally (and sacramentally, if possible) ratified marriage of a same-sex couple, this division comes closer to passing away.

But here's the rub. The state (at least the State of Connecticut, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and the State of California sometimes, Canada, the UK, and a number of other countries) has recognized, recorded and ratified our union in marriage - but our church, the entity which should be showing us the way forward in lives of commitment and integrity and accountability and hospitality and generosity and self-giving and unconditional love, still wavers on the borders of commitment to us. We can find pockets where bishops and priests claim their right to ratify our marriages as agents of the state and bless them as priests of the church, but we still feel constrained to protect witnesses who may be called to function in the church in other locales.

Our marriage is a commitment to be accountable to all those persons who have participated in and supported marriage - whoever they are, whether or not they are willing to support our marriage. They've got our commitment and our participation, those who value it and those who would reject it.

We both have this old fashioned ideal of the church as parochial in the original sense of the word, the place where we are, not the place we go to hear the sermons we prefer to hear. But for some of us, our church has not yet decided to be where we are. The consequence of this is that we can only celebrate fully, joyously, sacramentally, with a disparate group of sympathetic people who cannot be rooted just in the place where they live. So far.

Deirdre Good is professor of New Testament at General Theological Seminary and Julian Sheffield is a freelance QuickBooks consultant.

By Marshall Scott

There are some places that I don't wear my hat.

I wear a large, broad-brimmed black hat. I've done so for years. (I'm actually on my second.) When I originally made that choice, my own images were of Jesuit missionaries and Methodist circuit riders.

Of course, other people have other images. I also have a full beard and wear, as the weather requires, a long black coat. As a result, I've had other images suggested. Most commonly I'm told either that I look like a rabbi, or Amish, Mennonite, or otherwise Anabaptist.

And so, there are some places I don't wear my hat. Neither Jesuits nor Methodists are notable these days for their head gear; but Orthodox rabbis and Anabaptists are. And since each group has a lifestyle marked by a distinct discipline and piety (neither of which I follow), out of respect there are some places I don't wear my hat.

It's the resemblance to an Orthodox rabbi that can raise the most—well, perhaps not concern, but confusion. Years ago I worked in a hospital that had a health facility on site. I would go in early to work out before starting work. One winter morning I had finished working out, and was starting to get dressed. I pulled out the hat and the coat, and then reached for my work clothes. As I buttoned my black shirt and attached my white collar, a man down a few lockers down said loudly, “Now, wait a minute.”

I looked at him and said, "Yes?"

He said, "I grew up an Orthodox Jew in an Italian neighborhood, and you’ve just messed up all my images of religious professionals." We talked, and realized he was a former patient. We laughed about images, and not recognizing each other "out of place," and how the white clerical collar was a shock set against the background of a black hat and full beard.

Perhaps I'm overly concerned. I imagine many folks in any of the various traditions I have seemed to resemble, however unintentionally, would appreciate the sentiment, but not think my concern warranted. Still, it's important to me to be respectful, and to be clear, at least where I might be confusing, about who I am and who I’m not.

There is a new church body coming in North America. Those who are part of it will call it and themselves "Anglican." Many of those involved will have left the Episcopal Church, although many others will not have. Many will retain a certain anger about the Episcopal Church, although some will "get past it." The situation is not really new; there have been "continuing Anglican" bodies for decades; and that's without considering the Reformed Episcopal Church, whose tenure and reason for separating from the Episcopal Church place them in a somewhat different category. However, new unity and new size will bring them, at least for a while, new visibility. They will be part of the American church landscape for the foreseeable future.

I think that means we have to work out how we will be respectful. That may not be our first inclination. Some harsh things have been said. Some issues will have to be settled by due process that will feel to both sides like durance vile. Some folks on both sides will come to cherish their senses of righteous indignation and justification.

I think those things are painful, but still secondary. We need to determine how, once this is over, we will be respectful of folks with whom we differ, whether or not they are respectful of us. We remind ourselves frequently that we are called to respect the dignity of every human being, even—especially—those with whom we disagree, those who have condemned us. These circumstances may not be as clear (nor as painful) as the right cross of a Roman soldier, but they are our opportunity in our time to turn the other cheek.

Of course, in this case it's not as simple as choosing to wear or not wear a hat. Part of our regret in all of this is that we share so much in common with many of those who want this new Anglican entity. Critically, we differ on what is essential in the Anglican tradition; but we share that tradition nonetheless. That means that in so many things, from the colors of the church year to the colors of the priests’ shirts, to the very words we pray, we will look so very much alike.

That makes it all the more important for us to clarify who we are and how we will choose to live out the Christian faith and the Anglican tradition in the world. We need to resist the temptation, satisfying as it might seem at the time, to spend our energy reflecting on how they understand the Anglican tradition. We need simply and solely to proclaim how we understand the Anglican tradition, and how our tradition calls us to demonstrate the love of Christ in the world, both before the altar and beyond our walls.

If we are clear enough about what it means for us to be the Episcopal Church and to live out the Anglican tradition as we have received it, we won’t need to do anything else. Specifically, we won't need to be disrespectful of those whose understanding of the Anglican tradition is radically different. The differences will be clear—differences of mission and ministry, of tenor and teaching. Some will note the differences, and we might well respond, but without the need to be rude.

That won't always be smooth. My hospital is in the same area as one of the first congregations to leave an Episcopal diocese for an African bishop. Now and again I look in on a person whose record says, "Episcopalian," but who is part of the departed congregation. When I ask about congregation, the person will tell me, and then say, "Oh, I guess I'm not an Episcopalian anymore." I will respond that, for my purpose and for the hospital setting, the church political issues aren't important; but the tone always changes. I do my best to be welcoming, but the person seems awkward, perhaps fearing my disapproval. Frankly, so few of my patients are actively worshipping anywhere, I"m not about to let differences between Christians alter my appreciation of those who do.

And so I’m acutely aware that, in these times of change, we need to figure out how we will be respectful. Some things we may need to "take off" and some things to "put on," so as to be clear about who we are in the midst of their proclamations of who they are. They may be respectful, and they may not; and for some things it may be years before we can once again talk. In either case, we need to respect their dignity, as individuals and as institutions. It is the Episcopal thing to do, because it is the Christian thing to do.

The Rev. Marshall Scott is a chaplain in the Saint Luke’s Health System, a ministry of the Diocese of West Missouri. A past president of the Assembly of Episcopal Healthcare Chaplains, and an associate of the Order of the Holy Cross, he keeps the blog Episcopal Chaplain at the Bedside.

By George Clifford

Until two weeks ago, I strongly advocated the Anglican Communion refusing to establish a new province in North America and mandating that provinces cease violating provincial boundaries by conducting ministries or establishing congregations within the Episcopal Church’s jurisdiction.

Then I read that the Episcopal Church had spent in excess of $1.9 million in 2008 on lawsuits connected to the departure of parishes and dioceses from this Church. Daily I read about critical needs for healthcare, food, sanitation, and shelter in the United States and abroad. I see the spiritual illness and death that afflict so many. I remember that Anglicans have wisely never claimed to be the only branch of the Christian Church.

I started to wonder, Was I wrong? Why not another North American province?

Geographic boundaries, I realized, are not as sacrosanct as we who value tradition might wish they were. Within the Anglican Communion, geography has historically defined provinces and dioceses. The same is true of Anglican parishes in England, although not in most other provinces. Yet nowhere in Scripture can one find a God-given plan for the organization of parishes, dioceses, and provinces. Indeed, the whole concept of provinces seems extra-biblical. The geographic model for parishes and dioceses emerged naturally because of physical proximity, administrative practicality, and political identity.

Modern transport has invalidated the first of those three reasons why the Church adopted geographic boundaries to define parishes, dioceses, and provinces, i.e., so people could conveniently participate. The disestablishment of the Church, which characterizes most of the Anglican Communion, voided the second reason for geographic boundaries. The internet and development of online communities are diminishing the importance of political boundaries for defining ecclesial identity. All of these changes bring the Church closer to becoming more fully a seamless community of God's people.

The reality, as much as I or anyone else may not like it, is that geographical boundaries are no longer functionally definitive of Episcopalian identity. Four dioceses have already voted to disassociate themselves from the Episcopal Church and to associate with another Province. At least several dozen parishes have done the same. Numerous individuals have more quietly departed, often for a congregation that advertises itself as “Anglican.” In other words, the geographic model is irretrievably broken in the United States. Those who have left believe the divisions that were the catalyst for their move are too deep, too significant to permit dissidents to continue their Christian journeys within the Episcopal Church. One can no more coerce ecclesial unity than marital unity. Even as the Episcopal Church rightly recognizes its understanding of the Bible, theology, and ethics must change with the continuing unfolding of knowledge and moving of the Spirit, so should the Church be open to revising its thinking about ecclesial structures and polity.

A non-geographic model actually offers some advantages. In England, many communicants ignore parish boundaries to attend a parish that has the style of churchmanship or offers the programs the communicant desires. Latin American dioceses, for various reasons, have chosen to affiliate with the Episcopal Church. In the United States, parishes openly “compete” with one another, and with congregations of other Christian Churches, to attract communicants. This competition promotes quality programming, can better ministers to individual needs, and partially explains why Christianity flourishes more strongly in the U.S. than in England. Admittedly, like most things, ecclesial competition can have negative dimensions including promotion of ecclesial consumerism and clerical careerism at the expense of fidelity to the gospel.

Acknowledging the reality of multiple Anglican bodies within the geographic boundaries of the Episcopal Church would introduce refreshing notes of honesty and grace into the present turbulent controversy. This step might preserve Anglican unity by abandoning the dishonest hubris of insisting that the Episcopal Church is the only Anglican presence in the United States. Recognition of another Anglican province could provide an option for individuals, parishes, and dioceses to transfer, even as clergy now transfer from one province to another. A minority who wish to remain in the Episcopal Church but are part of a parish that wishes to transfer could establish a new parish or affiliate with an existing parish. Similarly, those in a diocese who wish who remain in the Episcopal Church after the diocese voted to realign could affiliate with an adjoining diocese that extends its borders or reconstitute the disassociated diocese.

My prognostication is that regardless of what the Episcopal Church may think or do, formal recognition by the Anglican Communion of a new province, perhaps co-terminus with the Episcopal Church or also including Canada, is inevitable. Alternatively, if that does not happen, then the Anglican Communion will persist in a state of denial, formally fracture, or authorize provinces to engage in extra-provincial ministries in the United States and perhaps elsewhere. Any new (or adapted) structure will launch with a brief surge, quickly plateau, and then linger, slowly losing relevance and impact. Those who wish to disengage from the Episcopal Church are wrong: gender does not determine suitability for ordination; gender orientation does not determine eligibility for receiving God's blessing of a faithful, monogamous relationship; etc. Truth, not error, will prevail.

Who – other than Anglicans (and only a minority of us) – cares about the structure of the Anglican Communion? Who else cares if the Episcopal Church is the sole Anglican body in the United States or if other provinces also function in the States? I honestly cannot think of any non-Anglicans who might care. Consequently, I recognized that my fighting about Anglican jurisdictional boundaries is a red herring that distracts me (and the larger Church) from the much more difficult task of the Church’s real mission, i.e., engaging in creative, life-transforming ministry. For the most part, whether a Christian belongs to the Episcopal Church, a different Anglican province, or another Church is relatively unimportant when millions are dying of physical needs and spiritual hunger. We must again move forward and cease waging an already-decided, rear-guard action.

The Rev. George Clifford, Diocese of North Carolina, served as a Navy chaplain for twenty-four years He taught philosophy at the U. S. Naval Academy and ethics at the Postgraduate School. He blogs at Ethical Musings.

By Peter Carey

In recent days, we’ve heard a great deal about what a “real American” might be, and what a “real American isn’t.” There has been rhetoric from Governor Palin when she has spoken in certain towns that they are “real Americans,” with the accusation that those people who come from urban areas, or who are from the Northeast, may not be “real Americans.” Questions arise about the status of those who don’t pass the test of being a “real American.” Do these people surrender the rights and privileges, and responsibilities of the “real Americans”? Lots to ponder in this election season.

This notion of “real Americans,” reminds me of some of the discussions that we’ve been having in the church. What does it mean to be a “real Christian”? In the Anglican Communion, work is moving along to create a Covenant which will spell out the requirements for being a part of the Anglican Communion. There is an apparent implication that those who are able to “sign on” to the Covenant will be “real Christians.” I suppose those who are unable to sign on to the Covenant will be some other kind of Christian…unreal Christians? I still have some grave concerns about whether this Anglican Covenant will be a good thing on various levels. Along with many others, I am waiting to see how this Covenant comes into being. There are people I respect who fall on both sides of the argument about the efficacy of the Covenant, so I am praying about it.

I wish that we in the Episcopal Church were just a bit bolder about what it is that we do believe; that we could put out our message with more fervor and enthusiasm. For example, I believe that we have allowed those who are outside our church to define us, usually negatively. What if we spoke with more clarity about our dedication to our baptismal covenant, and about our belief in the creeds? I was recently listening to a bishop who was at the Lambeth Conference who said that there were bishops from the Global South who were surprised to hear that Episcopalians actually believe in the resurrection. This came as quite a shock, but it does illuminate the confused messages that we allow to dominate the airwaves about our church.

The discussion about whether the Episcopal Church is orthodox enough gets into the labeling of whether we are “real Christians” or not. What is a real Christian? To those who wonder, I say yes, we do believe in the Trinity, that Jesus is our Lord and Savior. Don’t we believe in the sacrament of baptism, in which we die to sin and are raised in Christ? Don’t we believe that through this sacrament we have been received “into the household of God” and that we are called to “confess the faith of Christ crucified, proclaim his resurrection, and share with us in his eternal priesthood”? (BCP, 308). Not only are we “real Christians” but we may have a unique calling within the body of Christ in this post-modern world. Time will tell.

I am reminded of one of my heroes, William Sloane Coffin, Jr. who considered himself to be a “real American” even, and especially, when he protested injustice in our great country. He considered himself to be a “real Christian,” even when he spoke truth to church bodies that were slow to respond to the injustices of war, racial segregation, and nuclear proliferation. Coffin often said that we need to have a “lover’s quarrel with our country.” In his view, we need to love our country enough to have an engaged quarrel with the forces that would blindly accept the status quo. For Coffin, having a quarrel with one’s country, or one’s fellow citizens, was not a sign of being an “unreal American.” To truly love one’s country there will be times that disagreements will arise, and quarrels can help us to address our corporate blindness and oppressive tendencies.

And then there is the “lover’s quarrel” that is going on in our church. I continue to hope that our diatribes might turn to dialogue, and that our hostile behavior might turn to hospitality. I realize that we can fall into the trap of dehumanizing the other side, and claim that our way is the way of “real Christians.” I also realize that, for too long, those of us who are dedicated to the Episcopal Church (not without quarrels, however!) might need to gird our loins and speak with more boldness about our Faith, and about our practice, and refuse to let others define us. As someone said recently, the notion of “they will know we are Christians by our love,” may not be enough in our present context of 24/7 media saturation. A wise woman once told me that as a preacher I should “always be willing to give an account of the hope that is within me.” Are we, as the Episcopal Church giving that account boldly enough, and with enough gusto?

Doesn’t Jesus call us to do such a thing?

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28: 18-20, NRSV)

The Rev. Peter M. Carey is the school chaplain at St. Catherine's School for girls in Richmond, Virginia and is also on the clergy staff at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Richmond. He blogs at Santos Woodcarving Popsicles.

By Martin L. Smith

Sometimes we wake from a dream with only a strange question as its trace, and the other morning all I could remember as I shaved was a voice asking, “Do you mean business?” It’s a good question to ask looking into one’s own eyes in the mirror, a challenge to weigh the intentionality we are bringing—or not—to everyday living. And it is a question about faith, because for us today faith is about finding meaning in life and for life. Someone who means business today about becoming a genuine believer is conscious of wanting, needing, her life to have meaning. In fact, for Christians in the postmodern world, to find life meaningful as a gift from God through relationship with Jesus is what it means to be saved. Salvation is both to be rescued and fulfilled. Rescued from the spiritual vacuum of meaninglessness, and fulfilled by receiving with the love of God a sense of connectedness, purpose and destiny.

It is a good question to ask about the church. Does the church ‘mean business’? Do we accept that our main business today is with meaning, the struggle to find meaning, and the mission to help people discover the gift of meaning through the good news that has Christ at its heart? Are we still in the business of being saved and saving others? I wonder sometimes because of the negativity or indifference with which many Episcopalians react to the very concept of being saved. Perhaps it’s because they equate being saved with the idea of God reprieving (some of) us from the sentence of eternal damnation in hellfire. In recoil from that idea many seem to think that salvation is a concept best quietly shelved. In how many of our churches is the language of salvation really alive?

A certain historical perspective can help. How did the church mean business at first in the culture in which it grew so rapidly? It brought good news to a civilization haunted by the ravages of mortality, the inevitable decay that reduced human effort to futility. The gospel of the resurrection counteracted all that with an unprecedented sense of God’s abundance of life and his desire to bring human beings into such intimacy with himself that they could experience a fullness of being that was proof against death. How did the church mean business in later centuries? Its good news addressed the nightmare of alienation, the sense that guilt estranged us from the Holy One. The gospel offered a way through it to reconciliation with God, through the sacraments that made Christ’s gift of himself on the cross a contemporary healing power, and through a message of justification as a free gift received by faith.

In our era, mortality and guilt are all too real but they are not what haunts us most. We suffer from a crisis of meaning itself. In the doubting that comes when our defenses are down we wonder whether human consciousness is merely an accidental froth, just a spectacular by-product of evolution in a single primate species. We wonder whether human consciousness has such flawed wiring that civilization is doomed to be short-lived, and we shall bring on our own extinction sometime in the next 10 generations, leaving the planet to wheel on to its own eventual demise in a universe whose origin and destiny is a sheer enigma. Perhaps all human religions, not just some, are the product of sheer projection, imaginary thought-patterns that human beings have fabricated for bonding societies and marking pathways through the joys and pains of human life. In the kind of thinking to which we are vulnerable at 3 in the morning, we find ourselves in the horror of sheer doubt. For us religious doubt isn’t really a matter of questioning this dogma or that. It’s more primal. Have human beings been making it all up? Is there in reality any greater meaning in which my life is taking part?

A church that means business speaks to this crisis of meaning head on and is unafraid to talk of being saved. It encourages people to articulate their doubt, not just about this church teaching or that, but about the value and ultimate meaning of our fragile human lives on this little blue planet circling as a speck in a galaxy that is merely one of billions.

When I hear the gospel addressed to me in the midst of this vertigo of doubt, and accept its poignant insistence that our lives are meaningful because they are what God meant, and that we mean everything to him, and that he means to take us into his life by uniting us to the one who suffered with us and for us, whom he raised from the dead, I can say “This is what it means to be saved, and I want others to receive the same gift.”

Martin L. Smith is a well-known spiritual writer and priest. He is the senior associate rector at St. Columba’s, D.C.

By Phillip Cato

With each passing day, the profound irrelevance of the Church becomes more and more evident. In this irrelevance, the Episcopal Church excels.

Even a superficial knowledge of the events which are overtaking our nation is enough to make the case that our church has no direction to give and nothing intelligent to say.

Our economy is at the brink of total collapse. This is so self-evident that no argument needs to be made. Kevin Phillips, several years ago, in Wealth and Democracy, made the case that the United States was following the same pattern that proved the economic undoing of Spain, the Netherlands, and Great Britain. We abandoned a producer economy for one that is primarily financialized, with all our wealth in the form of traded paper.

What he predicted has come to pass. Wealth is concentrated in relatively few hands; the middle class (the former productive class) is greatly diminished, and regularly exploited for the benefit of the wealthy. Political power is oriented primarily toward benefiting those with wealth. The paper instruments upon which this wealth depends increasingly do not represent much that is tangible, the very conditions which preceded the 1929 stock market crash.

The current administration has accrued and claimed exceptional power to act as they choose without constitutional constraint. With sleight of hand, and a willful lack of truthfulness, they have led our nation into an ostensible “war on terror” which changes identity with predictable regularity as the need to justify preemptive war presents itself.

Almost every abuse of executive privilege and power has been on full display. Justice is regularly disregarded and trampled under foot. Disregard for the poor and antagonism toward the strangers in our midst are now a consistent and macabre caricature of Biblical teaching.

In the midst of all this, our Church, the Episcopal Church, squabbles with its internal critics, and behaves as if settling issues of sexuality, and its expression in the Church, are the only serious moral issues in view.

Our bishops waste time at Lambeth and in earnestly disciplining their recalcitrant colleagues while the moral, economic and political world is collapsing around us.

Somewhere in all of this, there is a mistaken hierarchy of values.

The church stands unprepared to deal with economic hard times; it spends unconscionable amounts of money and human resources on propping up failing congregations that have no sense of mission; it is completely unprepared to deal with either natural or health disasters; it eschews any prophetic stance against a corrupt government and a moribund Congress; and it seems to have no sensitivity to the plight of its own members.

When the Church becomes totally irrelevant, and that time is near upon us, those who have looked to it for spiritual and moral leadership will have to look elsewhere.

Though God loves the world; our Church apparently loves only itself and its institutional survival. And that survival increasingly makes very little difference.

The Rev. Phillip Cato is a retired priest of the Diocese of Washington. His current work is in bioethics, for the National Institutes of Health, and professional ethics.

By Kathleen Staudt

“Good Morning, Church!” This greeting has become familiar in my congregation. Members who originally come from West Africa are accustomed to beginning announcements that way. And it’s catching on. “Good morning Church!” the lay leader says.

“Church.” That would be us. And we respond heartily “Good morning!”

In the aftermath of Lambeth, and Archbishop Rowan Williams’s suggestion that a Covenant might make us “more like a church”, I’ve been musing about my own sense of what it means to “be a Church,” and where it comes from.

I came into the Episcopal Church in 1978, as the “new prayer book” was just coming into use. Coming from a Reformed and Confessional tradition, I was drawn by the beauty of liturgy and what I understood us to be saying at worship about what it meant to “be Church.” What holds Anglicans together, I learned in confirmation class, is not set doctrine but common worship, though of course we are always in conversation about doctrine and tradition. That has been what I’ve understood about being Anglican, and that’s been my experience at worship. So some of what’s coming out of Lambeth about being “more like a church” seems befuddling to me. I had thought there was consensus that as church we are not unified by doctrine or discipline sent from on high, but by our practice and worship. That’s what I take people to mean, discussing Lambeth, when they say we are “a communion, not a church.” But of course we are a church (as in “the Church, the people of God” to use Verna Dozier’s language). We’re not “not a church.” Clearly much remains to be discerned.

As is my habit, I go to back to the liturgy for help, to see what poetic images have rooted themselves into my imagination and memory. And here I find some metaphors that seem worth pondering in these times. They are from important prayers that I think are not always as familiar as they might be to people in congregations – and now might be a good time to revisit them in our corporate life in congregations.

The first comes from the baptism service, a passage that sometimes gets lost in actual practice, when the priest says “Let us welcome the newly baptized” and the congregation responds with applause. (I’ve seen this happen at a number of baptism services, in a number of congregations). But the words of welcome are Biblical, and important:

We receive you into the household of God. Confess the faith of Christ crucified, proclaim his resurrection, and share with us in his eternal priesthood.” (BCP 308)

The “household” of God. Yes. A good image of the Anglican Communion right now, as well as of many a congregation. We live together, we share the same food, and we have conflicts and celebrations, upheavals and challenges. But we belong to the same household. The rest of the welcome prayer is a catechism in itself – worth spending years unpacking: Confess, proclaim, share. We live out a “priesthood” as Christians, a life that involves bearing the Holy into the world, and sharing it with others, as Bill Countryman has described so well in Living on the Borders of the Holy. We are carrying out into the world the transforming love that is expressed in the faith of Christ crucified and the good news of his Resurrection. Being church means being the presence of Christ in the world, or in another metaphor I like, from Robert Capon, to be the Church is to be “the hat on the Invisible Man” for the world.

The fullness of that calling is expressed in my favorite prayer in the book, which I often use when I teach workshops on discernment and discipleship:

O God of unchangeable power and eternal light: Look favorably on your whole Church, that wonderful and sacred mystery; by the effectual ordering of your providence, carry out in tranquility the plan of salvation; let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection by him through whom all things were made, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. (BCP 280, 291, 515, 528, 540)

This prayer is appointed for Good Friday, just after the solemn collects, and Holy Saturday, just before the baptism service. We also say it at ordinations. (Marshall Scott has a good discussion of this in an earlier post on the Daily Episcopalian). It’s worth pointing out and holding up this prayer in a time when we’re reflecting on “being Church” because people who don’t attend a lot of ordinations may not be aware of having heard it or offered it.

I love the poetry of this prayer: the suggestion that radical transformation – things cast down, raised up, grown old, made new—can be carried out “in tranquility.” That in itself is a prayer for a miracle! This prayer acknowledges that our life as Church is held in the Divine life. To acknowledge this requires humility, as we craft ways to be together as the “household of God.” That’s why I also love the prayer’s description of the Church as “that wonderful and sacred mystery.”

The scrappiness and challenge of a “household”, held in “that wonderful and sacred mystery.” Holding these two metaphors together may help keep us open and humble, in this time after Lambeth and in the lives of our churches generally. as we continue to discern together what it means to “be a Church.”

Dr. Kathleen Henderson Staudt (Kathy) keeps the blog poetproph, works as a teacher, poet, spiritual director and retreat leader in the Washington DC area, and teaches courses in literature, theology and writing at Virginia Theological Seminary and the University of Maryland, College Park. She is the author of two books: At the Turn of a Civilisation: David Jones and Modern Poetics and Annunciations: Poems out of Scripture.

By Heidi Shott

Already I’m worried about General Convention in 2015 because a pattern seems to be developing between every third major Anglican/Episcopal event and a loved one dying of cancer.

Two years on the job as a diocesan communicator, my plan in early 2000 was to go to General Convention in Denver to learn, to report and to hang out with my communicator buddies. But then my father’s lung cancer returned with a vengeance in the spring and it became obvious I wasn’t going anywhere. I reported on the events in Denver from afar, and he died on July 23, a week or so after convention packed up.

While I’ve written a lot about those summer weeks over the past eight years (links below), it’s been hard – as both as a communicator whose salary is paid by people putting money in the plate week after week and as a person of faith – to put into words the conflicted-ness I feel about the “big” doings of the Church like General Convention and Lambeth and the “big” doings of sitting at the bedside of a dying loved one.

Which is bigger? Which is more important? Which is of greater consequence? Which is the greater story to tell?

As the Lambeth Conference was about to commence and I was giving Flip Video lessons to our bishop and bishop coadjutor – who are, by the way, doing a dazzling job at www.ourlettersfromlambeth.blogspot.com - I was also worrying about my next-door neighbor and good friend, Martha.

Two years ago, Martha was standing at the local Memorial Day parade next to her husband of 53 years and a friend who happened to be a nurse. It started with the nurse saying, “You look yellow.” A month later it continued with an extraordinarily complicated surgery for pancreatic cancer called the Anglican-sounding Whipple procedure. Though she was in the hospital for most of the summer it was, ultimately, a success. Then a good year. An excellent, normal year. But last fall during a routine check-up, the bad news arrived that the cancer had returned. Months of chemo ensued. Besides this nasty form of cancer, Martha was the healthiest, busiest, most vital 79 year-old we know, so to see her slow down was hard.

Though we live in a rural little village surrounding a millpond and a fresh water lake at the head of a tidal river, our house, a big 220 year old mishmash, and their house, a winterized, expanded cottage, are no more than 30 feet apart. The daughter of a former owner of our house built the cottage for her young family in the 1950s. It resembles a family compound and in the ten years we’ve lived here, that’s increasingly how we’ve crafted our lives in relation to Martha and Roger. Martha shares our twin sons’ New Year Eve birthday. With no children of their own and no close family nearby, they keep close track of our lives and we keep close track of theirs.

Her illness is awful. It’s wrong and painful and it’s coming to its conclusion.

Late in June, we were about to go camping and hiking in Acadia National Park. Before we left, I stopped by to check on Martha who had called off the chemo and was feeling poorly. “Go to the hospital,” I said. “I’m worried about you.”

“I’m worried about me too,” she said from the sofa where she cradled her painful belly.

When we returned four days later, Roger called to say she had been admitted.

“She doesn’t want phone calls or visitors,” he told me. After a few days of that nonsense, I stopped in early one morning and sat with him while he ate his Raisin Bran before going to the hospital.

“Roger, don’t leave until I give you a note for her,” I said, whipping out their back door. “I’ll be right back.” If there’s just one thing I can do, it’s write a damn good note.

At noontime, my husband Scott came home for lunch and picked up the ringing phone. He called out the window to me on the deck where I was reading. “Roger says Martha wants you to visit. Afternoons are good.”

When I got there I saw that the week had taken its toll. She was on a morphine pump and had lost weight. Over the next few hours and on several visits since – first at the hospital and now in a skilled nursing unit – I’ve pushed her morphine button, put the straw to her mouth, applied blistex to her chapped lips, held her hand, stroked her shoulder, kissed her and chatted with Roger about everything imaginable.

Unlike my father, the cancer has not reached her brain, so when she’s awake she’s fully herself.

“I wish something miraculous would happen,” she told me the other day when Roger left the room to get some tea, “but I know it’s just a matter of time.”

“We’ll be right next door.” I said. “I don’t want you to worry about anything. We’ll spoil him.”

She looked at me, so clear-eyed, so present, so close to something that’s hard to understand. I looked back and we smiled at each other with love.

And I thought, this is the most important thing happening in the world.

This morning – or last night, who knows when people are blogging from England – Jim Naughton, editor-in-chief of Episcopal Café, wrote

“My concern for the Lambeth Conference is that a critical mass of reporters—or perhaps just a handful of influential ones—will deem the conference a failure if it does not produce the sort of stories that they want to write, that they will say so repeatedly in the pages of their papers or on their blogs, and that this perception will become reality.

The only inoculation against this outcome that I can perceive—outside of an unexpected outbreak of forbearance from the British press—are vivid daily media briefings that feature bishops with good gripping stories to tell about how the conference’s theme of the day figures in their lives and ministries, and the lives and ministries of their people.”

As an Episcopal communicator, and as often as I could in the years I worked as a mainstream reporter, I’ve worked to tell “good gripping stories” because they are what people really want to hear. I believe well-told stories move people and engage people and change people. Why do you think Jesus spoke in parables? Why do our little children lie in bed at night and ask to hear tales of their parents’ and grandparents’ childhoods over and over again?

The story of our family’s love for Roger and Martha and our sadness in Martha’s illness is a real story. It’s one we’re living tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.

The Lambeth Conference will be important to the Church and the world only to the extent our bishops sit with one another and listen closely, lovingly and compassionately to the stories each has to tell. Then they need to return to their homes to share the news with their people. It won’t be the same as hearing for ourselves, but it’s a start.

It occurs to me that after my father died in 2000, just after General Convention, I thought and wrote something similar to this. I really hope I get it right this time.

Links
My own private Denver -

Holding hands at the comma

They’re onto our game

Forty percent in the loop

Next month, Heidi Shott will begin work as canon for communications for the Episcopal Diocese of Maine . Her essays about trying to live a life of faith may be found at Heidoville.

By Greg Jones

Edward M. Jefferys, Twelfth Rector of St. Paul's in Philadelphia, wrote eloquently about Bishop William White some seventy-one years ago - on the event of the sesquicentennial of Bishop White's consecration to the Episcopate. He writes:

William White was, while Samuel Seabury was not, "the Father of the Episcopal Church" in the United States. After the conclusion of the Revolution, William White visioned, planned, worked for, and far more than any other achieved, the organization, and then guided the first steps, of the American Church. He it was who thought the question through, inspired others with the thought, won over the half-hearted, conciliated the objectors, gained through the right channels the good offices of our government, of the British King and Parliament and of the Church of England, the latter having been long willing to grant the episcopate to the colonies; and crowned his efforts by obtaining for us the English succession through his consecration and the consecration of Dr. Provoost by the then Archbishop of Canterbury, the Archbishop of York, the Bishop of Bath and Wells, and the Bishop of Peterborough. It was, therefore, he more than any one else who brought the churchmen of the North and South together, and inspired them with the vision of a National Church.

It is indeed true that White not only authored the seminal vision of the structure and polity of the Episcopal Church, he also shepherded it through challenging conventions, and through the necessary avenues of ecclesiastical diplomacy with the Church of England. William White, not Seabury, not Provoost, not anyone else, presided over the nascent Episcopal Church as it would become the first independent Anglican Church in full communion and with the full support of the Church of England.

As we go into a Lambeth Conference season - let us not forget that The Episcopal Church has a significant place in the Communion - not because we are Americans, but because, by providence, our own founding effectively gave rise to the Anglican Communion itself. No only does The Episcopal Church owe this in great part to the leadership of William White - but so too does the entire Anglican Communion. White led the process which established the reality of an Anglicanism bigger than the established churches of Great Britain, resulting in a global communion of Anglicans united by affection, faith and common prayer. All of us should bear that in mind as we continue in this life of Christ together - in this province and all.

I believe that White may be seen as a representative figure of the comprehensive Anglican leader. Like him, we continue to need leaders in the Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion who:

Treasure the faith and order of the Prayer Book tradition, allowing revision as provided for in the first preface of 1549, while not requiring it to be radically revised either;

Value the doctrinal witness of that Prayer Book, and the prayer books and articles of faith which have followed since 1549; understanding that the Articles of Faith in particular, contain a number of differently understood points, and in general have not been required in the Episcopal Church ever, or the wider Anglican Communion for decades;

Cherish the continuity of connection and communion with the See of Canterbury;

Believe in the equal honor and dignity of all four orders of ministry, and works toward a truly conciliar ecclesiology in which all orders share in authority and governance;

Supports high-level theological education for all leaders, especially clergy;

Manages to bridge gaps cultural and theological within the wider Anglican fellowship for the sake of the unity which the Holy Trinity calls us to exhibit as a people called to inhabit in the triune life of God.

The Rev. Samuel Gregory Jones ("Greg") was educated at the University of North Carolina and the General Theological Seminary, where he is on the board. He is rector of St. Michael's Raleigh, and blogs at fatherjones.com.

By John B. Chilton

In the U.S., healthcare insurance is predominantly an employer-based system. In this environment it falls to the church to consider how and whether to provide health insurance to its active clergy and lay employees. At present within the Episcopal Church this is handled at the diocesan level. This legacy may flow from the decentralization of much of the financials in the Episcopal Church. Budget wise each diocese is a boat with its own bottom.

General Convention 2006 endorsed the Church Pension Group's recommendation for a church-wide healthcare feasibility study:

Resolution A147
Title: Church-wide Healthcare Feasibility Study
Topic: Employee Benefits
Committee: Church Pension Fund
House of Initial Action: Bishops
Proposer: Church Pension Fund Board
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Resolved, That the 75th General Convention endorse the Church Pension Group’s proposal to conduct a church-wide study of the costs and issues surrounding the provision of healthcare benefits to all clergy and lay employees serving churches, dioceses and other church institutions and to report their findings to the 76th General Convention; and be it further

Resolved, That all dioceses, parishes and other church institutions are urged to cooperate with the conduct of this study by responding to requests for data regarding employee census and healthcare costs; and be it further

Resolved, That this study will include an analysis of the potential for a mandated denominational healthcare benefits program and other viable alternatives, culminating in a recommended solution and an actionable implementation plan.

Two key words in this resolution are "mandated denominational" found in the third resolve. If a mandated denominational plan were adopted it would be a significant departure from current procedure where it is the dioceses rather the denomination that determine healthcare benefits. It is instructive that in the second resolve dioceses were urged, not mandated. to respond for data requests.

Health insurance is one of those peculiar products where the cost to the provider depends on the characteristics of the buyer. For insurance providers to cover their costs they must pay careful attention to who is buying the product, and price it accordingly. For the same reason, when premiums are based on the health of the group there is the potential for cost shifting between groups to occur when groups are merged, harming the healthier group. Taking this down to the individual, if you are healthier than average, and you are given the choice to opt out, you might be bettter off going without insurance. Providers take this self selection into account in pricing.

At present, the denomination does offer dioceses elective (as opposed to mandated) healthcare plans priced according to regional costs, and the characteristics of the diocesan membership pool. (The extent to which this service by the denomination has been sought by dioceses has waxed and waned.) But many dioceses prefer to design, acquire and administer their health plan locally. Flexibility is one factor, but my presumption is that cost is the primary reason some dioceses find it is in their interest to go it alone. A mandated plan, by contrast would not allow dioceses to opt out of the denominational plan.

(Readers also may see the parallels between the Roman Catholic Church and the corporate model, and the looser form of hierarchy in The Episcopal Church. In a corporate model the corporation always has the option to decentralize acquisition and administration of employee health insurance to the local level or keep those decisions under central control. But as the Episcopal Church is structured it would take an act of General Convention to mandate the reverse, that is, a centralized clergy and lay employee health plan. Note that a mandate would have the curious effect of disallowing local exemptions from the health plan while the church has allowed local options on other issues such as women in the priesthood.)

The same tension exists within dioceses today where the parish (with few exceptions) is mandated to participate in the diocesan plan. Particularly in parishes with a large staff it may be the case that a parish with a healthy staff can find lower costs (for equivalent coverage) than it would be charged through the diocesan plan. When parishes are free to leave and reenter a diocesan plan, and do so according to the changing health of their staff, a great deal of animosity can result. And insurance companies are loath to deal with you when your eligible population is so ill defined, and self selects on the basis of changing need for health coverage.

GC 2009 is not far off, and the Church Pension Group has commenced its "church-wide study of the costs and issues surrounding the provision of healthcare benefits to all clergy and lay employees serving churches, dioceses and other church institutions" or, in short, Health Benefits For All Church Employees: CPG studies the feasibility. As CPG puts it:

The study will:

Evaluate how the Church provides healthcare benefits to active clergy and lay employees

Explore viable alternatives, including the potential for a denominational healthcare benefits program

Recommend a solution and a plan for implementing it to the next 2009 General Convention

The CPG is well into the evaluation stage and has reported the results of its Awareness and Opinion Survey. To come are the results (see resolve 2 of A147) of the Employer Health Benefits Questionnaire and the Employee Health Benefits Questionnaire. Also planned are focus groups around the country in Fall/Winter 2007-08; presentations and conversations with the House of Bishops, Executive Council, provincial caucuses, and other church leadership groups; and regional meetings around the country as GC 2009 nears. Indeed, much of this work is also completed or underway.

The first resolve of A147 envisions benefits for all clergy and lay employees. This is a justice and equity issue: at present the church has found a way to provide healthcare coverage for active clergy, but not for many (full time) lay employees. The common situation today is for a diocese to mandate that clergy be covered, and to invite lay employees to participate if they or their employer pays the premium.

The pattern has been that many lay employees are not covered. The reason is that lay employees tend to be younger/healthier than clergy. Unless they themselves have medical problems they find the insurance overpriced because insurance is priced according the health of the participating group, not the individual. The result is that few lay employees participate because they prefer to have the cash to paying the premium (or what is the same thing, they prefer their employer give them cash equivalent rather than give them health insurance).

There are reasons, however, to hope a church-wide plan might reduce premiums so that clergy and lay employees would both benefit. These are what CPG calls the Driving Issues.

First, under a unified health plan the denomination might have greater bargaining power than any diocese can muster on its own. For some of our smaller dioceses small numbers is a reason they cannot negotiate good premiums. But what I've been told is that this is not a significant issue once your group is over 150 members or so. A mandate would allow smaller dioceses to join in the negotiating advantage benefit that larger dioceses already enjoy.

Second, it is anticipated that mandating lay coverage will change the composition of the insured pool. Preliminary survey results indicate that the lay group is comparatively younger and healthier than the clergy group. Thus, it can be true that while a lay person might not want to purchase insurance at a premium based on a clergy-only pool, that same person might benefit from purchasing insurance at a premium based on pooling all clergy and all lay employees.

A question that arises is, if mandating lay coverage makes so much sense (because it lowers overall costs of salaries and benefits to clergy and lay employees), why haven't dioceses done so on their own initiative? Could it be that no one wants to tell lay employees we're expanding your benefits, but taking the premium out of your salary? If so, then mandating inclusion of lay employees will lower per capita healthcare care costs, but church-wide total healthcare costs will increase as would per capita costs of employing a lay person. The incentive will be to cut employment of lay persons undercutting the benefits of pooling clergy and lay employees.

Finally, a church-wide plan could reduce the administrative burden by relieving "dioceses, parishes, and other church institutions of the burden of developing and maintaining health benefits programs." This benefit could be significant, particularly for smaller dioceses.

CPG has done a careful job of communicating its study's progress through its website, and through its periodical Flash devoted to the topic which is mailed to clergy and lay employees of the church. In the May 2008 issue of Flash (PDF) the CPG puts its cards on the table (p. 2):

After a great deal of research and analysis over the past year, we have come to the conclusion that a denominational health plan has many outstanding advantages for the Church. And various comments offered during conversations, emails, and interactions with the Church at various levels indicate that many clergy and lay employees around the country agree. Through focus groups, presentations, and one-on-one conversations – including the April meeting of the Conference of Diocesan Executives (CODE) and the recent annual Medical Trust meeting with diocesan administrators – the majority of employers, clergy, and lay employees have expressed agreement that a denominational health plan is the best approach to take.

A Preliminary Denominational Health Plan is laid out on pages 3 to 6 of the May 2008 Flash. A new survey is being disseminated: "All clergy, lay employees, and General Convention deputies will soon be asked to complete a new survey which will solicit feedback on initial concepts for a denominational health plan and help us gauge how well we’re keeping you informed" (p. 6).

What of the potential for pushback from dioceses that are doing well on their own? To limit tensions between winners and losers from a mandate, the current thinking is that premiums charged to the dioceses will be set based on regional demographics and regional cost of healthcare. The hope is that as a result each diocese would be at least as well off as it is going it alone.

The plan would require that dioceses treat clergy and ("full time") lay employees with parity. If the diocese requires parishes to pay, say, X percent of the premium for parish clergy, that same cost sharing most hold for full time parish lay employees. I would note that in the end, parity may be more apparent than real. Mandating a benefit might cause a parish to reduce lay employment, or to hold down lay salaries. And could a parish say we treat clergy and lay equally, but we require them both to pay 100 percent of the premium passed to us from the diocese? If so, then a parish might hold lay salaries the same, but increase clergy salaries to keep the latter as well off.

While the Church Pension Group is not saying that it will recommend a denomination healthcare plan, it is signaling that chances are strong that it will and that so far what it is hearing is a consensus across the church. It is giving us all plenty of notice that we should be thinking hard about whether this serves the best interests of the Church.

Dr. John B. Chilton is an economist on a busman's holiday in Orkney Springs, Va., home of Shrine Mont Episcopal Conference Center of the Diocese of Virginia. He maintains two personal blogs, The Emirates Economist and New Virginia Church Man.

Excerpted from The Episcopal Call to Love
(Apocryphile Press)

By Rob Gieselmann

The Darkness

There is such a thing as Original Sin, only it isn’t what you think. Original Sin is the pall of darkness covering our world.

We live in a room shrink-wrapped by time and space, enshrouded and governed by darkness (see Jn. 1:5). We breathe evil as oxygen in this dark place. It isn’t a choice. We are born into it. Division, hate, bitterness, war, sectarianism, racism, sexism, fear, doubt, even pessimism. Humanity cannot escape the evil. There is no health in us.

Indeed, there is beauty and wonder and love here, joy and family and closeness. But this Eden-earth is canopied as a rainforest. We see the beauty of Eden darkly.

God unbounded by time and space, God as ubiquitous, God living simultaneously in all places and at all times: that God as infinite light entered into the room of this world through the doorway of a virgin. God as the absolute of good and love and light voluntarily subjected herself (or himself, if you prefer) to, in Scripture’s words, the shroud of darkness, the prince of this world, the darkness personified.

God by incarnation submitted to the devil, breathed deeply the devil’s oxygen, was tempted in the wilderness to become one with the devil, and was, at the end of it all, murdered by the devil. Death strangled life; evil trumped love and entombed God.

The Christian message is stark, compelling, and horrifying. Absolute, perfect, and infinite good and love and light submitted by passive non-resistance to absolute, perfect, and finite evil and hate and darkness. To death. Good Friday became the devil’s holy day.

The Light

But Good Friday is not the endgame. Easter is. The expression of nuclear power as at Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end WWII is exactly God’s plan, only darkness and not people is the target. It isn’t just that Jesus rises from the dead on Easter morning, death itself replaces Jesus in the tomb. As Paul writes, death is the ultimate enemy to suffer defeat (1 Cor. 15:26).

The power of the Christian promise is not that God is compassionate, nor that God is our companion when life gets tough—no matter how accurate both truisms might be. The power of Christianity is this: the darkness has been rendered a mere illusionist, acting by slight of hand. Fear is the only power darkness has left. Life and light and eternity bested darkness long ago; we are victors already. Life is ours now. Life through death. Easter through Good Friday.

And therein lies the horror: we live because we first die. I have been crucified with Christ, Paul writes, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith... (para. Gal. 2:20). Jesus, too, understands that we gain life only through death: take up your cross and follow me (see, e.g., Lk. 9:23, 24). In union with Christ we have imitated his death, we shall also imitate him in his resurrection (Rom. 6:5).

The ancient rite of Baptism incorporates this theology of symbiosis:

We thank you, Almighty God, for the gift of water.. . . of Baptism. In it we are buried with Christ in his death. By it we share in his resurrection. Through it we are reborn by the Holy Spirit (BCP 306).

Baptism is not some arcane rite by which otherwise innocent babies cursed with actual sin are cleansed and, as my seminary professor liked to quip, slapped into the Kingdom, saved from hell in the nick-o-time. Baptism isn’t a fire insurance policy, nor is baptism primarily about forgiveness.

Baptism is about darkness and light, death and life. It is about Original Sin, and its defeat as a power in our lives. But it is also about submitting first to death. We identify fully with and accede to the power of death at the cross exactly because we trust in God as Son submitting completely on the cross: Into your hands I commend my spirit. We give up the ghost, the sky turns dark.

Which may be why the priest marks the baptismal candidate on the forehead with the sign of the cross, Christ’s own forever. The cross is the mark of your death. You are no longer your own, you are Christ’s own forever—a dead man walking.

Following Jesus always leads to the cross, for God and good and others in the defeat of evil. He who will save his life will lose it; he who will lose his life for my sake will find it (Lk. 9:24). Every stitch of Christian ethic originates at the foot of self-sacrifice. Not self-preservation.

But the cross at baptism becomes the mark of life. My life, the one that is hidden with God in Christ. (Col. 3:3) I am alive because I have died!

Note the severe poignancy of Ash Wednesday. The priest marks the forehead with the same cross and oil as at baptism, marking the penitent simultaneously with death and life: You are dust, and to dust you shall return, and the unspoken reminder, you are Christ’s own forever. Again, death is life’s womb.

Original Sin. Original Sin isn’t some stain on the soul inherited from parents. Original Sin isn’t about what one has done or left undone. Original Sin is about the state of affairs—the condition of the world, the air we breathe. The air is polluted, and the condition of the world is dark. That Original Sin is sin with a capital “S,” and is about us—all of us, and not any one of us. Original Sin is collective darkness, the hardness of the heart of a humanity that long ago rejected its God. It doesn’t matter whether you believe in Eden literally or metaphorically, the result is the same. Humanity preferred, and most often still prefers, evil over good, the devil over God. War over peace. Death over life.

God as Son breathed evil as oxygen when born into this world, and so do we. From the minute we are born, we become polluted with the oxygen of evil that we breathe. We become estranged from love, estranged from life, estranged from good, estranged from God, and estranged from others. Our estrangement is also Original Sin, the state of affairs requiring the saving act of Christ. We need to be saved from the evil of isolation.

Baptism saves us (1 Pet. 3:21). Born again into Christ, into community, we are fitted and joined with others, into a living organism of love and acceptance. What God has joined together, let no one put asunder.

Love. Paul doesn’t write about the power of self-sacrificial love for the poetry of the words, but for a power-filled reason. The power of life is found in a love that does not insist on its own way; ...that bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things (1 Cor. 13:4-7). Love submits to the Other, as Jesus at the Cross.

This love is the ultimate, and perhaps only, Scriptural imperative: [L]ove the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.... [L]ove your neighbor as yourself (Jer. Bible, Mt. 22:37). All of the law and the prophets hang, depend upon, and are interpreted by a love that becomes at least equal to, if not greater than, love of self.

The exotic beauty of love is rather simple. Love as light dispels darkness. Love is a positive force that overcomes. Love casts out fear. Love keeps Original Sin at bay.

The issue facing us, then, is this: what happens when we stop loving, when we stop being a community of love? What good is salt that has lost its saltiness? (Matt. 5:13). It is fit only to be trampled underfoot.

Rather than self-sacrifice forming our ethic, rather than love binding us, we in both the Episcopal Church and the broader Anglican Communion have formed ethic by argument, by besting one another, by being right rather than by loving.

It doesn’t matter whether the position one holds on the issue of Gene Robinson’s ordination and on homosexuality is technically and morally correct. It really does not matter. The reason it doesn’t matter is because we are asked by God to trust in Jesus as the Christ to be and act as the head of the Body, the head of the Church. We trust Jesus to take care of things, to bring things around to a right theology, and we trust Jesus because we are deeply aware of our own fallibility, our own humanity, that we’ve been wrong before, we’ll be wrong again, and in all likelihood, each of us is wrong now—at least in part. In fact, I guarantee it.

Even if, perchance, there is one of us who is not wrong technically on the issue, he or she is still wrong. As my parents used to tell me, you can be right as rain and still wrong. Remember, Jesus pointed to the sinner beating his chest for mercy as the one who received mercy, not the righteous Pharisee. It was the prodigal who received the Father’s love, not the good son. The good son couldn’t—he was self-consumed.

Which is why we yield. Which is why we trust. Which is why we submit as Jesus to evil, because yielding yields life. Death is life’s womb—we die to our own choices and opinions, in favor of others’.\28 Remember, he who saves his life will lose it. But he who loses his life for my sake, and for the kingdom, will find it—dead man walking.

If we don’t sacrifice self, we can’t call ourselves the Body of Christ. We have become mere table salt that has lost its flavor.

Jesus as Christ in love with a world enshrouded by evil came to destroy the shroud, to open the door to eternity and life and love. The Gospels aren’t wrong just because they are dualistic. The battle is still one of evil against good, of Satan against God, of death against life. The promise is that we are already victors. The curse is that we still see as in a glass dimly. The hope is that we don’t have to.

The Rev. Rob Gieselmann, a lawyer, has served at St. Luke's in Cleveland, Tennessee and St. Paul's near Chestertown, Maryland. He is rector of Christ Episcopal Church in Sausalito, Calif., and author of The Episcopal Call to Love.

A statement by Bonnie Anderson, President of the House of Deputies of the Episcopal Church at Preparing for Lambeth: A Conference for Religion Writers held at Virginia Theological Seminary on May 30, 2008.

There are two dynamics that will significantly affect our bishops at the Lambeth Conference. One is the exploration of the role of bishops and the other is the discussion of the proposed covenant.

Examination of the role of bishops:

At the opening of the Lambeth Conference in a traditional “retreat” style of brief theological reflection by the Archbishop, silence and mediation by the participants, then reflection, our bishops and all invited bishops, will reflect upon the archbishop’s words about “the bishop as a disciple of and leader in God’s mission”.

This event is a conference for bishops and it seems completely right for this topic to kick off this historic event. But I think that this topic also speaks to the Archbishop’s hope to confront what he has identified as a “major ecclesiological issue”. I think that the Archbishop has given up trying to get our bishops to take an independent stand on the future of the moratorium of same sex blessings for instance, and is now moving to “plan B” and turning his attention to encouraging our bishops to understand their “distinctive charism” as bishops, perhaps in a new way. I envision Archbishop Rowan pondering in, to use his word, “puzzlement” why these bishops of the Episcopal church don’t just stand up and exercise their authority as bishops like most of the rest of the bishops in the Communion do. Why would our bishops “bind themselves to future direction for the Convention?” Some of us in TEC in the past have thought that perhaps the Archbishop and others in the Anglican Communion do not understand the baptismal covenant that we hold foundational. Perhaps they just don’t “get” the way we choose to govern ourselves; the ministers of the church as the laity, clergy and the bishops, and that at the very core of our beliefs we believe in the God- given gifts of all God’s people, none more important than the other, just gifts differing. We believe that God speaks uniquely through laity, bishops, priests and deacons. This participatory structure in our church allows a fullness of revelation and insight that must not be lost in this important time of discernment. But I think our governance is clearly understood. I just don’t think the Archbishop has much use for it.

In his Advent, 2007 letter, Archbishop Williams states:

A somewhat complicating factor in the New Orleans statement has been the provision that any kind of moratorium is in place until General Convention provides otherwise. Since the matters at issue are those in which the bishops have a decisive voice as a House of Bishops in General Convention, puzzlement has been expressed as to why the House should apparently bind itself to future direction from the Convention. If that is indeed what this means, it is in itself a decision of some significance. It raises a major ecclesiological issue, not about some sort of autocratic Episcopal privilege but about the understanding in The Episcopal Church of the distinctive charism of bishops as an order and their responsibility for sustaining doctrinal standards. Once again, there seems to be a gap between what some in the Episcopal Church understand about the ministry of bishops and what is held elsewhere in the Communion, and this needs to be addressed.

At the Lambeth Conference, I believe that the voice of the conformed bishop will be easily heard and affirmed. The prophetic voice will not be easily heard.

Our bishops will experience a dynamic that will encourage them to guard the unity and to hold the communion together, perhaps even through the vehicle of a covenant.

The Archbishop has made it clear to our bishops that when they accepted the invitation to Lambeth, they have indicated that they are willing to work with implementation of the recommendations of Windsor, including the development of a covenant. Again, in the Archbishop’s Advent letter:

I have underlined in my letter of invitation (to the Lambeth Conference) that acceptance of the invitation must be taken as implying willingness to work with those aspects of the Conference’s agenda that relate to implementing the recommendations of Windsor, including the development of a Covenant.

A word here about the process and how the process for receiving comments on the second draft of the covenant underscores the understanding of the role of the bishops by the ABC. The people of the provinces, the clergy and laity have a voice regarding the second draft through their bishop. Unlike comments received on the first draft from all interested members of the communion, with a process for laity and clergy to give direct input, comments on the second draft are made solely, directly by bishops. The Secretary General wrote to all the primates and provincial secretaries with the St. Andrew’s Report and the Joint Standing Committee supporting resolution. There were three specific questions attached and the primate was asked to determine how to address the questions and which body was the most appropriate to answer. The questions are:

1) Is the province able to give "in principle" commitment to the Covenant process at this time (without committing itself to the details of any text)?
2) Is it possible to give some indication of any synodical process which would have to be undertaken in order to adopt the Covenant in the fullness of time?
3) In considering the St. Andrew's Draft for an Anglican Covenant, are there any elements which would need extensive change in order to make the process of synodical adoption viable.

The input of the clergy and laity of the Episcopal Church is especially important as the Anglican Communion considers the development of a covenant. The joint work of the House of Deputies and the House of Bishops is the highest institutional expression of our belief that God speaks uniquely through laity, priests and deacons and bishops. It is thus crucially important that our bishops go to Lambeth knowing what we think about the current state of the proposed Anglican covenant.

Bishop John Bryson Chane writes to his diocese:

Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

As you may remember, our diocese is proposing that the Episcopal Church include civil rights leader and former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall on its liturgical calendar. By resolution of the 2006 Diocesan Convention, we recommended that May 17, the anniversary of Marshall’s victory in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education school desegregation case be observed as his feast day.

The 2006 General Convention referred the resolution to the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music, which, we hope, will bring it forward at the 2009 General Convention, next summer in Anaheim.

One important criterion that the Commission considers is whether there is widespread local observance of a candidate’s proposed feast day. So to strengthen our presentation at the 2009 General Convention and, more importantly, to hold up before our people the Christian witness of Justice Marshall, please plan to observe Saturday May 17 or Sunday May 18 as Thurgood Marshall Day in your parish.

You can learn more about Justice Marshall at edow.org.

In Christ’s Peace Power and Love,
Bishop John Bryson Chane

The Washington Window has written numerous stories on the effort to include Marshall's name in the book of Lesser Feasts and Fasts. (1, 2, 3, 4.) The mainstream media has also paid some note.

Liturgical resources for the feast of Thurgood Marshall, May 17

Propers suggested by the Diocese of Washington. Music suggested by students at Seabury-Western Seminary and St. Augustine’s Church, Washington, D. C.

Collect
Eternal and Ever-Gracious God, you blessed your servant Thurgood with special gifts of grace and courage to understand and speak the truth as it has been revealed to us by Jesus Christ. Grant that by his example we may also know you and seek to realize that we are all your children, brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ, whom you sent to teach us to love one another; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and ever. Amen.

Suggested scripture readings
Amos 5:10-15, 21-24
Psalm 34:15-22
I Corinthians 13:1-13
Matthew 23:1-11

Suggested Music
Song of Praise
Christ Has Arisen from Lift Every Voice and Sing (LEVAS) 41

Sequence
Zimbabwe Alleluia

Offertory Hymn
How Great Thou Art LEVAS 60

Memorial Acclamation Sung to the tune of We Shall Overcome:

Jesus Christ has died.
Jesus Christ is risen.
Jesus Christ will come again.
Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe,
Jesus Christ will come again.

Communion Hymn
Just As I Am LEVAS 137

Processional Hymn (and Marshall’s personal favorite)
Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory LEVAS 226

By Adrian Worsfold

One wonders if The Episcopal Church as a body is wearied by the constant ideological attacks made upon it by the more conservative of Christians, especially those coming out of its ranks. It and its leadership are commonly accused of Unitarianism. Perhaps this comparison ought to be examined.

The Anglo-American strand of Unitarianism is liberal at every level. It does not have checks and balances via structural overlaps in its liberalism, but rather is independent and liberal at each and every level and it all works by persuasion and goodwill (or doesn't). Thus the model is without creeds and articles, and is congregational and evolutionary. American Unitarianism was always congregational, the English too. The Anglican Church was actually resistant and oppositional to the congregationalists of the East coast of the United States. Although The Episcopal Church has inherited much in the way of American democratic culture, it keeps a qualified episcopal system. It keeps creeds and is somewhat systematic. It has congregations but is not made by congregations.

Now there have always been points of crossing over. King's Chapel was the first Episcopal Church in New England. Loyalists to Britain were forced out in 1776 and it closed. A year later congregationalists displaced by the British effectively opened it up, sharing with Episcopalians until 1783, when their own chapel was refurbished, and James Freeman was selected to be the minister at Kings Chapel among the Episcopalians, and it was agreed that he would not have to read the Athanasian Creed. He read Joseph Priestley's A History of the Corruptions of Christianity (1782) and Theophilus Lindsey's An Historical View of the State of the Unitarian Doctrine and Worship from the Reformation to our own Times (1783) and became Unitarian, and the congregation on hearing some sermons adopted a qualified Unitarian stance. The church nevertheless retains something of an Anglican ethos to this day. Lindsey is important, because he was an Anglican rector in the north of England who resigned his orders when the Feathers Tavern petition against subscription to the Thirty-nine articles failed, and he opened the first named Unitarian Church in 1774, using an Arian liturgy produced by the Anglican Samuel Clarke. The important point often made is that Arianism was more important in the Anglican Church than in English Unitarianism and of course there were Anglican Latitudinarians too, a long word for liberal. After that some Anglicans and some Unitarians co-operated, and there were individuals who crossed over in both directions, and continue to do so to this day. One wonders if the downgrading since Lindsey's day of the Thirty-nine Articles to "historic formularies" receiving a general assent in the Church of England would have satisfied him.

People forget that while John Henry Newman went on his travels from gothic Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism, his brother Francis went in the opposite direction from Anglicanism through Unitarianism. Blanco White went from Roman Catholicism via Anglicanism to Unitarianism. I know today of a Unitarian who is now Roman Catholic, and there is a vicar in Essex who was once a Unitarian minister, and indeed an important person in my own religious travels (now deceased) started off as a Anglo-Catholic ordained in St Paul's Cathedral and ended up as a humanist-Buddhist and symbols-using Unitarian minister in London.

Of course there are Unitarian Christians who have an ecumenical outlook and who draw on the theology produced by liberal Anglicans. Many an Anglican has read Unitarian Christian writing with sympathy. The oddity is that Unitarian Christianity is conservative (I never got on with it; I went down more progressive routes) whereas Anglican liberalism is what it indicates. The two Churches are quite different in approach and ethos, and it is why Unitarian Universalism how has humanist, neo-Pagan, Eastern and Christian wings, and an identifiable Christianity is a minor element of that Church. The British Unitarian Church is more liberal Christian, but shares the same constituencies as the American Church.

There is of course the central European Unitarian tradition that has and retains a catechism, that is a Unitarian form of Protestant Christianity, and was Socinian in Poland and Unitarian in Transylvania, and with repression spread itself to the Netherlands to affect other communities.

One wonders whether the critics of The Episcopal Church actually make the best comparison with Unitarians when they want to accuse it of liberalism. Why not instead attempt to compare it with Liberal Catholicism?

Now Liberal Catholicism does retain apostolic succession, and it does retain some creeds (it tends to keep the Apostles Creed and quietly drop the Nicene Creed). It is, however, very theologically diverse - indeed in terms of groups with apostolic succession in goes the full distance, from strict Eastern Orthodoxy and ultra-Romanism right through to anarchy. Rather than have any pretence to centralisation, they all pursue the autocephalous understanding of Eastern Orthodoxy whilst recognising the apostolic orders. Personally I think the autocephalous understanding would be a better model for Anglicanism than the intended centralisation of the current Archbishop of Canterbury, who seems all too often to describe the Anglican Communion as an Anglican Church. He wants to make it recognisable to Roman Catholicism as a body, but to do so would be highly innovative and a Covenant to do this would cause enormous institutional strain and almost certain division by rejection. The cost of the autocephalous route, however, would inevitably be more than one Anglicanism in a geographical area - something that has already happened.

Liberal Catholicism is part of what sometimes is called the phenomenon of Episcopi Vagantes. It is actually misleading, because there should be something like 45,000 Liberal Catholics in the world (still tiny) and some eight million independent Catholics.

There are different lines of apostolic succession and they are quite complex. My interest has been more ideological. Roughly speaking there are two strands. The first might be called Liberal Catholic Theosophical. Arnold Harris Mathew was made a bishop by the Old Catholic Church that has deep origins in the Netherlands and then in the rejection of the 1870 decision by the Pope to regard himself and all successors as infallible. Mathew came back to Britain and gathered around him some priests, most of whom became interested in Theosophy. Tolerant at first, he then dismissed them, and also personally tried to reconcile himself with Rome (he had been Roman and Anglican - and even Unitarian for a moment). His relationship with the Anglican leadership was difficult because he reordain very many Anglo-Catholic priests worried about the validity of their orders. It is from this relationship that English Anglicanism has an ideological chip on its shoulder about Episcopi Vagantes (whereas Roman Catholicism seems more relaxed).

Mathew consecrated his successor, who then consecrated one of the Theosophy interested priests, James Ingall Wedgwood (of the pottery family), in 1916, and he consecrated Charles Webster Leadbeater, also in 1916, who was the real deal when it came to pursuing Theosophy and a magical view of the eucharist. He had also been a Buddhist (which also allows a rather magical interpretation in the richer traditions). The current various descendents of Liberal Catholicism regard Theosophy with variable levels of importance, and Leadbeater himself forsaw a time when it would not be important. Liberal Catholicism has a history of splits and has a number of branches.

A second ideological source comes from the Unitarians. For convenience I call it Free Catholicism (which is how it called itself). Joseph Morgan Lloyd Thomas took the liturgical and Victorian gothic Free Christian tradition to a Catholic liturgical logic along with ecumenical friends including the congregationalist W. E. Orchard. This is just a few years after the outbreak of Liberal Catholicism. Free Catholicism did become trinitarian, after a fashion, but promoted creedless sacramentalism. Another strand is from Ulric Vernon Herford, who came from a family of Unitarian ministers. He had ordinary ministries in East Anglia and the west of England, but had mixed with the liturgical side of Unitarianism and indeed partly trained with Anglo-Catholics in Oxford. He then moved his Oxford congregation into a semi-monastic and liturgically richer setting and had a grand world-ecumenical vision, being ordained and consecrated in India along the lines of the Syro-Chaldean (Nestorian) Church and Roman Catholic Church, Syro-Chaldean Rite. He did not change his theology - he continued to be in all effect Unitarian. It seems that he assumed a Unitarianism of sorts in his consecrator and his consecrator Luis Mariano Suares, Mar Basilius, assumed a trinitarianism in Herford.

I would like to think that Free Catholicism adds a rationality to the more magical tradition that is Liberal Catholicism - that would be my own bias I suppose. Free Catholicism did not continue like Liberal Catholicism did, and Unitarianism is biased against it - it regards the founders as unreliable, detached and against the ethos of Unitarianism. I used to think they were missing a trick or three (especially in a more symbolic postmodern age), and it is a principle reason why I moved to the Anglicans for a more liturgical and eucharistic setting, and a faith path or spiritual discipline.

One gets the connection, but I realise that I stretch Anglicanism as far as it can go (and possibly too far). My own religious beginnings were in liberal theological Anglicanism - and I moved to the Unitarians, and from them moved back to the Anglicans. I am one of those who has crossed the borders. I probably live in the borders, a sort of religious Northumberland.

My resistance to Liberal Catholicism is pretty thin, but I am put off by the esoteric and magical. The mainline Christian traditions make a point of distinguishing between the supernatural and the magical. Magic means power invested in the individual, whereas the supernatural is a vertical channel from God and presumably more reliable. However, the whole priestly "ontological difference" and Orders business does come pretty close to magic, and magic can be in the service of people just as kingship can be. My own argument is more about having rationality as an approach: for me mainline Christianity leads to a kind of self-emptying and burial of the supernatural (in the end) and the magical is something else. Incidentally, I was also involved in the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order, which, as well as stressing its own multiple apostolic succession (!), made a distinction between what is essential and what is culturally added on. I carry some of that, though I think religion is all cultural. My view of apostolic succession is that it is just a point of identity and continuity: I don't give it power. My own view of the eucharist is rather more social anthropological too, at root, as to how it 'works'.

Magic is not compulsory in all Liberal Catholicism, just as Theosophy usually is not, but it gets a friendly press because it offers an explanation for apostolic succession and eucharistic power. Now, if you limit the magic, is there any substantive difference between Liberal Catholicism and some tendencies in Anglicanism? Are they not more similar than liberal Anglicanism and Unitarianism as it has evolved? I simply ask the question. One wonders about the Protestantism in the equation. It could just be that Anglicanism, whilst it has its near neighbours, cannot be compared with anything, and that it is an utterly unique animal. It might regard itself as part of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, whatever others may think, but nevertheless it is its own culture as are the other branches of the Pauline derived varieties.

Adrian Worsfold (Pluralist), has a doctorate in sociology and a masters degree in contemporary theology. He lives near Hull, in northeast England and keeps the blog Pluralist Speaks.

By Steven Charleston

Have you heard what happened at Seabury? That’s a question some of us have been asked a lot, especially if we are connected to theological education in the church.

But if you are one of the folks who may have missed the story, the question about “Seabury” refers to Seabury-Western Theological Seminary, one of the historic Episcopal seminaries, located in Evanston, Illinois. After years of training priests and lay leaders for the church, Seabury has announced drastic changes for the future. Faculty are being let go and programs shut down. In many ways, they are closing up shop under great financial pressure in the hopes of being able to reopen after extensive remodeling.

So what happened at Seabury? That’s the question. Why did this have to happen and is it an omen of dire things to come in the Episcopal Church?

Here is my short answer:

What happened at Seabury was an honest effort to deal with a reality that affects 95% of the seminaries in the United States. If it is a sign of things to come, it is a good omen of long overdue attention to the critical issue of leadership development in our church.

The men and women of the Seabury Board, faculty and staff are facing the harsh truths of trying to sustain our seminaries as “mini-colleges” in an era when the rules of the theological training game have completely changed. This is not a “failure” on their part, but recognition of the future. The truth is, we are in an adapt-or-die evolutionary moment for theological education. It is not necessary for us to wonder what went “wrong” with the past: it simply is the past.

Theological training today can not be sustained by the old models of education. And I am not just talking about the need to adapt to technology. Eventually, in spite of the efforts to pretend that our kind of learning is so special we can not rely on technology, history will force us to keep pace with other educational institutions. The truly more difficult issues will be in our ability to redefine formation itself, and along with it, the meaning of ordination and community. Next to those issues, technology will be a piece of cake. Change is the underground current that has carried Seabury to the place where it finds itself. We are all on that river together.

The deeper question is not what happen at Seabury, but, what is happening in the Episcopal Church? Where are we in regard to our commitment to academic excellence and spiritual formation? Right now, the answer is chaotic. We are grappling to find new models, new methods, and new mandates. Our seminaries and the national church are working together in fresh ways that promise new hopes. There is lots of action, but the climb will be uphill. Not only will our seminaries need to find new ways of working together, the whole church is going to have to find a way of actually supporting the development of its leadership rather than outsourcing its education to other, less expensive alternatives.

Seabury is not the canary in the mine. Seabury is the light at the end of the tunnel.

We now have an opportunity to reclaim our role as a Christian community in the forefront of education. We have let that priority slip over the last 30 years. We have a training system marred by ideology, stuck in a cafeteria design for education, limited in technology and financially strapped. But we have outstanding people in place and creativity in abundance if we choose to use it. The common sense and courage of Seabury is a call to us to join them in waking up to reality. If we want the Episcopal Church to remain one of the best educated faith communities in the world, we need to invest in the kinds of change that will make that possible.

What happened at Seabury? Something sad, yes, but also something good. Something to be proud of. Something hopeful.

Should we mourn the passing of the old Seabury? Yes, of course, but we should also celebrate the doors Seabury has just opened to the future. We may not like what that future requires of us, but change is never the first path we choose to follow. Seabury offers us a reminder that our leadership, identity and vision are not accidents, but the results of what we choose to invest in. For generations, we have invested in education that is the best we can create. It is time to do it again.

The Rt. Rev. Steven Charleston, former Bishop of Alaska, is president and dean of Episcopal Divinity School, and keeper of the podcasting blog EDS's Stepping Stones. A citizen of the Choctaw Nation, Bishop Charleston is widely recognized as a leading proponent for justice issues and for spiritual renewal in the church.

By Greg Jones

I have been enjoying the new HBO miniseries John Adams. As a history buff with an interest in the Revolutionary War period, I am relishing this historically erudite dramatic presentation. My own Jones ancestors were also patriots, and I am grateful for their courage and willingness to do the right thing.

John Adams was not religiously unusual in his class and time -- but it might surprise folks now to learn that he was a Unitarian. Like many highly-educated persons of his time, swept up with the ideals of the Enlightenment and the Age of Reason, Adams rejected the basic tenets of Christian faith.

As I understand his theology Adams rejected the doctrines of the Trinity or the divinity of Jesus. Indeed, many of the leaders of the American Revolution shared in such modernist beliefs, preferring in the place of creedal Christianity something we might call secular humanism -- with a hint of divinity sprinkled about it. Like many other leading citizens, patriots and zealots for the cause of liberty and the pursuit of happiness -- Adams would not have been able to hold dear the Nicene and Apostles Creeds, acknowledge the gracious power of the sacraments, or declare the Holy Scriptures to contain all things necessary for salvation. Almost without doubt, I believe Mr. Adams would have denied any value in the office of the episcopacy, especially as understood by Anglicans, to be an office with special divinely given authority down through the ages.

And Adams, while a 'liberal' in many ways for these religious beliefs, shared them with many others who we might call 'conservative' for their religion. In his day, American evangelical Protestantism was on the rise, thanks to the revivals of the period preceding the Revolution. Yet, while adherents to Calvinistic Protestantism would have confessed belief in the Trinity and divinity of Christ, they would also have done away with the more ancient and catholic marks of the faith, such as the creedal formulas, sacramental theology, and episcopacy. The last decades of the 18th century, and the first decades of the 19th century, were good for this kind of Christianity, but they were not boom times for Anglicanism in the United States of America.

After the Revolution, former colonists, fired by the notion that they had thrown off the chains of monarchy, struggled to figure out how to remain Anglican, wondering whether they had thrown off the Church of England and its lordly episcopacy as well. Indeed, many Anglican clergy remained loyalist, and left these United States.

The challenge for those remaining, who yearned to be Anglican still, was to figure out how to preserve the essential marks of the 'one, holy, catholic and apostolic' faith, the essential elements of Anglican identity as they existed unto that point, while also separating out other bits: like the divine right of kings theology which fueled so much of Establishment theology in the Church of England.

We owe a great debt of gratitude to those founders of the Episcopal Church who managed to work out these questions in rather short order, and without coming to pieces. For even then, as now, there were different parties within American Anglicanism. Some were basically straight-up Calvinists or evangelical Protestants. Others were the High Churchmen of New York and Connecticut -- others something little different than a Methodist, a Congregationalist, or even a Unitarian in some places.

But, continuing to use the Prayer Book as a guide, and allowing only for moderate and often minimal changes, the founders of the Episcopal Church managed the birthing process pretty well. William White was a leader in that cause. As a 'moderate revolutionary,' he was committed to the harmony of the American expression of Anglicanism, and also to continued relationship with the Church of England.

Frankly, it is remarkable that White, the second bishop of the Episcopal Church (after Samuel Seabury), could have become a bishop when he did, where he did, and the way he did. White was consecrated as Bishop of Pennsylvania in 1787 by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Archbishop of York, and the Bishop of Bath just a few years after the end of the American Revolution. He didn't even have to go up to Scotland to be consecrated irregularly there by bishops willing to do without an allegiance oath to the British Crown.

White, an American, a patriot, and a man ordained to the priesthood in the Church of England before the Revolution, found himself elected by his peers (not appointed by the crown), and consecrated by the hierarchy of the Church of England to serve as a bishop in an altogether new entity -- an independent, autonomous, and free 'Anglican' church, in communion relationship but not fealty to the Sees of Canterbury and York, etc.

White -- a creature of his time though not beholden to it -- was able to do both a new thing (i.e. help to launch a new 'church' with a revised ecclesiology and self-understanding) while not destroying an old thing (i.e. the essential doctrine and practice of the apostolic Christian faith.)

I believe we need more folks like Bishop White in the Episcopal Church. Not radical revolutionaries, but faithful evolutionaries.

We do not create ex nihilo -- only God does. We shape ground we've been given -- do we not? We do not work from the annihilation of what we receive, but rather by the faithful and often slight re-translation to suit evolving contexts. Only from time to time are we called to dissolve those long established bonds between old and new iterations -- but not normally on every day or even in every age.

It seems not so unimaginable to me that we could manage to preserve and uphold the faith once delivered (the Nicene faith, the Baptismal covenant, the sacraments, the Scriptures, the historic episcopate) -- while also cherishing our particular liturgical tradition (the Book of Common Prayer and Hymnal) -- while also continuing to stand for the teaching of Christ in the face of a world which is unjust and ungodly -- while also continuing to do that prophetic work of trying to bring real justice to fruition by the upbuilding of the Kingdom of God on Earth today -- while also being open to the occasional revision of certain liturgical practices, moral teachings, and other matters which of necessity are often limited by time and space and are not perhaps eternal.

I'm just thinking that instead of following the trajectory of the radical reformers of Protestantism who between the time of Luther and John Adams managed to toss out in one place or another nearly the whole of the faith and practice of the Church of England -- we might be a bit more like old William White.

In other words -- passionate about the Gospel, cherishing the bonds of baptismal, eucharistic and ecclesiastical unity, and walking humbly and mercifully with a Lord who teaches us to love all, heal all, feed all, liberate all, and welcome all to relationship in the name of Christ.

Can I get an amen?

The Rev. Samuel Gregory Jones ("Greg") became a member of Christ's Body at St. Columba's in Washington, D.C., and he was educated at the University of North Carolina and the General Theological Seminary, where he is on the Board. Rector of St. Michael's Raleigh, and author of Beyond Da Vinci, he blogs at fatherjones.com.

By Peter Carey

In the midst of Episcopal Church news that includes court decisions in Virginia, inhibition of bishops, and disagreements in many congregations one might be forgiven for thinking that our church is rapidly swirling down the toilet bowl.

News Flash: It ain’t!

We don’t have too look far to see the bright spots in our church. Check out the growing network of Episcopal Internship Communities across the United States. For several decades, churches and dioceses have sponsored small groups (4-8) of young adults (18-30 years old or so) who live in community and each member works at a social service agency. There are slightly different guidelines and practices between these groups, but together they are sending thoughtful, prayerful, and dedicated young people into the Church and the world.

In 1992-1993, I had the good luck to join a community that was administered by the National Cathedral in Washington, DC. At the time, the “Cathedral Volunteer Service Community” was made up of six young adults from around the country. We hailed from Texas, North Carolina, Connecticut, Ohio and Vermont and came to the community from a variety of religious and political perspectives. We were lucky enough to have as our leader and mentor the Rev. Carole Crumley, who was then a canon of the National Cathedral (and is now a leader at the Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation). The CVSC was grounded in a Rule of Life that had echoes of Benedictine Spirituality. We pledged to live in intentional Christian Community, praying together daily, sharing in the work of the household, meeting once a week for theological reflection with Canon Crumley, and also pledged to live a life of simplicity. In this case, simplicity meant (in part) that we each only received $100 a month for food (which we pooled to shop for the six of us) and $100 for other expenses. That was simple living!

We were challenged to feed and entertain six people on $600 a month. We were also challenged find ways to build community across our various theological and political differences, and it was not always easy. To top it off, five of us were first-born children in our family of origin! (We had some strong personalities to manage.) Outside of our house, I had the great fortune of spending a year working at the Samaritan Ministry of Greater Washington (SMGW) where I offered employment counseling to those who were homeless or at risk of being homeless. Really, I didn’t know anything about finding work (as I never really had a job before!), but I encountered people who were decidedly different than me, and while I don’t know how much help I gave, I certainly learned a great deal.

The six people in my community followed a variety of paths after leaving the community. One became a priest within a few years after our program, two others became teachers, another worked in business and then decided to follow his heart and now does work with cancer patients, another does peace and justice advocacy with another denomination.

While the Cathedral Volunteer Service Community is no longer in existence, there are several other Episcopal Internship Communities that are thriving and growing. Trinity Episcopal Church in DC now offers a program in our nation’s capital. The Rev. Jason Cox, who is a friend of mine from seminary, administers the program in the Diocese of Los Angeles (Episcopal Urban Internship Program). There are several other communities which are offering young people a way to practice their faith by working for those in need, living in intentional community, and integrating this work and community-living into their theological views and spiritual practices. This is good news indeed! It also counters the long-standing assumption that people in their twenties and thirties will leave the church and will return only when they decide to have a family.

Some Episcopal Internship Communities are sponsored by parishes, others by groups of parishes, and others by dioceses. Not only are these wonderful opportunities for young people, they are also tangible signs that our church is doing good things in the world, and that the work is connected to our belief in Jesus Christ, our hope in the Resurrection and our call to live lives of hope and compassion.

As a new priest, I am often asked: “Does the church have anything to say to the world?” It certainly does! One of the best ways to “say something to the world” is to show the world what we’re doing. These programs say that our church is engaged with the world and is developing dedicated disciples.

Can we do more? Certainly.

Can we encourage even more of these programs to develop? Absolutely.
Is our church about more than legal battles, inhibitions, schism, and disagreements? You bet!

Check out the Episcopal Internship Communities at The Episcopal Church’s website in the section on “Domestic Internships.” There is also Facebook group “I was a member of an Episcopal Internship Community,” as well – check them out!

The Rev. Peter M. Carey is the school chaplain at St. Catherine's School for girls in Richmond, Virginia and is also on the clergy staff at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Richmond. He blogs at Santos Woodcarving Popsicles.

By Lauren R. Stanley

RENK, Sudan – On my left wrist, I wear two bracelets that I never take off. One is a black-and-white beaded affair that is quite popular in Sudan right now, called ajok, a symbol of the beauty of contrasting colors. The other is the white ONE campaign bracelet, which I have been wearing for over a year.

Recently, one of Sudan’s Episcopal bishops asked about my bracelets. He knew about the ajok bracelet, for it is part of the Dinka tradition and he is from the Dinka tribe. But this other one, he said, pointing to the ONE campaign, what is that?

So I explained that if everyone in the world actually donated1 percent of his or her income, we could end poverty, feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty, provide medicine and education, build up local businesses, reduce child mortality, combat deadly diseases and become real stewards of the environment.

In other words, I said, for mere pennies per person per day, we could change the world and help bring about God’s kingdom.

Where would the money go, the bishop immediately asked.

To programs that are proven to work well and that deliver on their promises.

This is a good idea, he said. How can we teach our people this?

So I pointed him to our newest project, the building of water cisterns to catch rainwater from the roof of St. Michael’s Chapel at the Renk Theological College. I pointed to the seemingly huge hole in the ground, dug by an older man named John Tho who showed up every morning and every evening for five days to dig 2 meters down, 1.5 meters around, with perfectly straight sides. John dug that hole, and is digging three others, all by hand, slowly, surely, with great professionalism.

Then I pointed to our contractor, Mohammed, and his two assistants, Solomon and Idriss, young men who are learning the craft of brick-laying and concrete-pouring. Normally, the three of them dig and build pit latrines. These water cisterns are new to them, but the idea of storing water in underground cisterns, where it will stay cool and clean, instead of in 55-gallon plastic barrels or rusted metal tanks, appeals to them. Already, they are thinking of how all this clean water will change the lives of all the people who have access to it.

And I pointed to those who gave life to this project: ECWs in two parishes in Winston Salem, N.C.; two congregations in the Diocese of Virginia; one men’s group in Southwestern Virginia; one family in Northern Virginia; and one individual, who combined their resources to finance underground water cisterns that will catch rainwater off the chapel’s zinc roof.

It’s not a huge project; the funding for the initial work was $5,400. And the cisterns, while good ideas, certainly won’t change the world.

But they will make all the difference to the students and staff at the Renk Theological College, to their families, and to the surrounding neighbors who come to take water from the College. During the rainy season, the White Nile River becomes the “Big Muddy;” the water on which all of us depend often is a dirty brown, and that is after it has been “filtered” at the water plant. It can take up to six months for the river to cleanse itself, during which time anyone drinking from the water, or bathing in it, is exposed to at least a dozen different diseases, many of which are deadly.

Catching the water off the zinc roof of the chapel will mean clean water, possibly for up to six months. During the long dry season, water from the taps (which comes intermittently at best) can be stored in the cisterns, where the silt will settle to the bottom, the water will be clean, and those who depend on it will not have to go without.

That’s the idea behind the ONE campaign: To take a little bit of money and make it go a long way to change the lives of as many people as possible. Nothing big needs to be done; grand plans do not need to be made. Instead, the focus is on little actions that change lives quickly and for the better.

Four contractors, working in brutal heat under a searing sun, are combining their professionalism with the funds and prayers and support from approximately 200 Americans who heard the story of the water shortages here in Renk and decided to do something about it.

That, I told the bishop, is how we make the ONE campaign work: We see the need, tell the story, create partnerships, pray constantly, work together.

Are we changing the world?

Not yet.

But we are changing one small piece of the world, and we are helping a whole lot of people here in Renk.

We think this is a good start.

And we hope – we pray – that once people see how well these cisterns work, they will want to do the same thing, which means we can start a small company here that will specialize in this work, thus providing jobs and training for one group of people, and clean water for another group.

Will we need more partners in this?

Yes. But that’s part of the ONE campaign: Bringing people together in the community in which they have been created, crossing all boundaries because there are no boundaries in God’s very good creation.

Our little informal portion of the ONE campaign is based on our hopes and dreams: We began this project in the hope that it will join people together across 8,000 miles. We are continuing it to help the people in most need right here in Renk. And we dream it continues to grow, with future partners who will fund the purchase of pumps to replace the ropes and buckets we will use at first. Perhaps we will even find the start-up money for a new company.

Whatever happens, we know that with these cisterns, we’ve begun something new among the people of God in the name of God.

The Rev. Lauren R. Stanley is an Appointed Missionary of the Episcopal Church serving in the Diocese of Renk, Sudan. She is a lecturer at the Renk Theological College, teaching Theology, Liturgy and English, and serves as chaplain for the students.

By Greg Jones

I am an Episcopalian. Not by accident of birth, or cultural happenstance. No, I am an Episcopalian because The Episcopal Church welcomed me, embraced me, and initiated me into the mysterious Body of Christ Jesus, the Lord and Savior of the Whole World, of which our church is a vital part.

I do not come from a 'cradle Episcopalian' family. My paternal grandmother was most decidedly uninterested in organized religion. My paternal grandfather was a Baptist. My maternal grandparents were extremely traditional old world Roman Catholics. My father was not raised in any Christian church, my mother left Roman Catholicism as soon as she could, and most of my cousins were almost entirely unchurched in their growing up.

I spent a great deal of time with a family in our neighborhood that had tons of kids and they became like another family for me – the mother of which led the choir in a Methodist church. I joined that choir – and thus began my first experience of church life. "All Thing Bright and Beautiful" was my favorite hymn from those days. I was five years old, to be exact, when I sang in a Methodist children's choir.

My parents separated before I entered the first grade, and for the rest of my childhood, adolescence and early adulthood, I would shuttle between households. However, and thankfully, at the very time of my parents' divorce, a neighbor invited us to attend worship at his church. It was St. Columba's Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C., and from the moment we walked in the front door on Albemarle Street, I knew I had a home. Not only a spiritual home – but a home made of bricks and mortar, wood and glass, with a fixed location and a glorious capacity to bring people in. Every time I drove by my parish I would look at it and smile – and know that it was my place too.

St. Columba's was undergoing revival in those days, seeing tremendous growth in worship attendance, music ministry, outreach, mission, education, and spiritual formation – much like St. Michael's is today. I joined the choir there – my mother took classes and was received into the Episcopal Church – and for the rest of my childhood we spent most of our quality time associated with parish life in one form or another.

My first band played there – we played rock and roll at a talent show – and some poor kid in my band even did a break-dancing routine. (It was 1982.) I knew every single square foot of that entire facility. When they had a capital campaign and added significantly to the worship space and bought a world-class organ – it was something I was very excited about, even as a young kid. I took great pride in the beautification and expansion of the nave – and in the glorious sound which came from the organ. The beautiful architecture and the music formed me deeply.

Choir, Sunday School, retreats, youth trips, soup kitchen work, friendships, pancake suppers, weddings, funerals, sneaking around with a pack of kids – it was all what made that parish my home and my way into the Kingdom.

Quite simply, other than my own parents and grandparents, and a few other people – no other place, no other community, no other shaping force has done more to make me who I am than the Episcopal Church – as found on Albemarle Street in Washington, D.C.

If it weren't for the Episcopal Church, as expressed in that congregation with its very specific place in space and time, and its faithfulness to the Gospel, I wouldn't even know who I was. Thank God for the evangelism of the people of St. Columba's who knew that it takes more than talk to spread the Good News. It takes more than getting doctrine right. It takes more than knowing what the Scripture says. It takes more than all of that. It takes the creation of a spiritual home which is alive in the Spirit, and which is truly focused on being the place where disciples of Jesus worship God, meet and grow together, and are formed into the full stature of Christ.

For this I continue to be grateful for and at home in the Episcopal Church.

The Rev. Samuel Gregory Jones ("Greg") was educated at the University of North Carolina and the General Theological Seminary, where he is on the Board. Greg is rector of St. Michael's Raleigh, and author of Beyond Da Vinci (Seabury Books, 2004). He blogs at fatherjones.com.

By Howard Anderson

I was re-reading John Jewell’s Apology for the Church of England last night. Yes, I know, only a Church nerd would “re-read” something as ponderous as that. My seminarian daughter, Kesha, urged me to read it because she felt it was important. It isn’t exactly People magazine or even The Washington Post. But something struck me as I read his often turgid and convoluted arguments against the Roman Catholic Church and the Bishop of Rome. He, as well as his student, Cranmer, and Hooker were the three individuals who put Jewell's thinking into a new formulation of reason, tradition and scripture; and that the Episcopal Church are another step in the Holy Spirit's guidance of the church councils.

Jewell was seen by many, especially the Roman Catholic Bishops in England, who argued vehemently in the House of Lords against Elizabeth’s “Settlement,” as merely another Protestant cleric. But in his defense of the Church of England he began to link the seeming opposites together. He was smitten by the sola scriptura (scripture only) focus of the Protestants, but was appalled by the Puritans who took things too far in throwing the Catholic baby out with the bath. His fixation on the primitive church, and their less hierarchical priesthood of all believers, reaching out to the world as a way of living into God’s reign, almost sounds like what the “emergent/emerging” church folk are writing and talking about these days. Of course it took a couple more centuries before our ecclesiology caught up with the ideal of the primitive or early church. But I think it has. And I admit that I, like Jewell, am enamored greatly by the early church, whose faults I candidly admit I have not explored as deeply as its enduring contributions to the Church today.

I remember sitting in a pub in Canterbury with several of the Cathedral Canons, and after the second pint, one said “You Americans need to get with the program and use the same polity as the rest of the Communion.” My response was something like, “Perhaps you forget, that there was a revolution in the colonies and I believe your side lost. And, as you tried to strangle the Episcopal Church baby in the cradle by withholding episcopal support, our friends, and your adversaries the Scots came to our aid.” I added, rather snidely I fear, “The Church of England and the whole Communion, will, within our children’s lifetime, adopt the Episcopal Church’s polity. My friends, if you think lay and ordained Episcopalians will give up their rights to vote on matters of import like electing their rectors and bishops, voting in General Convention and give them over to a bunch of bishops let alone primates, you are simply deluding yourselves!” Slurp, wipe the Guinness foam off my upper lip, “so there!”

This harkening back, I admit often with nostalgia dimming the realities of the primitive church, has always marked much of classical Anglican thinking. The polity we in the Episcopal Church have embraced, coming out of our revolutionary culture is truly an American intervention into the wonderful world of polity. It is a reform that does take a step forward in the evolution of a church that is thoroughly Catholic, yet embraces the reformation thinking. I always add that TEC is “the last catholic church left.” Note the small “c.” But I can say that God willing, anyone I baptize could become our Presiding Bishop. There is no automatic roadblock to anyone who has the gifts for serving TEC as an ordained or lay leader, like there is in other branches of churches in the Catholic tradition, and these roadblocks of exclusion exist even in the normally inclusive mainline Protestant denominations.

TEC is much maligned in some Anglican quarters these days. But mark my words, this reforming Catholic/catholic church of ours is doing a great thing in following the model of radical inclusion that I believe Jesus called the early Church to, and stills calls us into today. Living in the tension of being a both/and Church is not easy. We, like Jewell, look backward for inspiration and forward to a church ever more being called by God into a bright and unpredictable future. It never has been easy to live in this tension. It never will be. But as for me, I am proud of this Church of ours that dares to risk persecution and having all kinds of evil muttered against it falsely on account of following Jesus.

The Rev. Dr. Howard Anderson is Warden and President of the Cathedral College at Washington National Cathedral. He was a long time General Convention deputy and most importantly, is grandfather to a five year old theologian, Will.

By L. Zoe Cole

During the day, I write ethical dilemmas that are used as part of a web-based simulation that teaches ethical decision-making skills. One of the things we teach is that more often than not ethical dilemmas are choices between competing goods rather than between right and wrong. The other thing we teach is that although there is often more than one "right" answer, some answers are better than others. Virtually everyone does in fact have a personal value system, although most can't articulate it and to the extent that we make "good" choices, we do so by accident rather than a reasoned and replicable process.

In popular debate, those arguing for the maintenance of traditional notions of morality often posit the "anything goes" straw man as the only alternative to tradition. However, to reject traditional notions of morality (which are often simply about maintaining the power and privilege of one group over another) is not to reject all notions of morality or the value of morality. It is simply to suggest that a different set of criteria or understanding of the same tools (e.g. different interpretation of the same Biblical texts) be used to determine what is moral, ethical and why some choices are better than others.

As Episcopalians, we are sometimes criticized for a dearth of "official theology," but we do have lots of information about how to make choices that are life-giving, or proclaim the Good News or spread the Kingdom - or however one describes the end results that are desirable for Christians. We have a catechism that tells us what sin and redemption are (sin is "the seeking of our own will instead of the will of God, thus distorting our relationship with God, with other people and with all creation" and redemption is "the act of God which sets us free from the power of evil, sin, and death" BCP p.848-849); we have Eucharistic prayers that tell the same story of creation, sin, judgment and redemption in different ways; the Easter Vigil which goes through the same history using various passages of Scripture; the baptismal covenant; the Prayers of the People—oh! and then there is Scripture itself!

All these provide tools for discerning whether one set of actions or values or politics is better than another. They also provide a common language, and, to the extent we take responsibility for learning, a shared teaching. Some choices are a matter of individual conscience, but if we are the Body of Christ, then we are not free to operate only from a position of individual choice. We have responsibilities as members of the Body to fulfill the vocations given to us. I am an elected deputy to General Convention and therefore have a responsibility to consider what common choices and commitments are appropriate and/or necessary for this part of the Church (The Episcopal Church) to do the work God has given us to do (as distinct from the Church of England or the Anglican Church of Nigeria), as the Church (as distinct from what I am called as an individual to do).

Some complain that the fact that different members of the Church come to different conclusions using the same tools means that we have no standard or shared language by which to justify one practice over another - in fact, we use similar standards and shared language all the time, we just don't use it to justify the same practices. The fact that we understand these tools to point toward different decisions for different people at different times does not leave us to the "arbitrary rule of the majority," whatever that means. Presumably those who complain of such a standard are making some distinction between the way we currently make collective decisions and the way other Christians do or did in the past. Are those decisions somehow less arbitrary or less the will of the majority?

Although I hope TEC lives out the Church’s vocation to be prophetic, and know that some congregations are profoundly and transformatively so, my guess is that in reality we are no more nor less prophetic overall than any other group of Christians. I think the only thing we can be is true to our own experience, even when, or perhaps especially when, that experience is not the same as others. I suspect based on what I read and hear from both the conservative and liberal sides that many see the parallels between our current religious debates and problems and Jesus' criticisms of the religious leaders of his own day. For those who are called to live in the light, we still spend a lot of time in darkness of our own making.

Some complain that we merely mirror a liberal American culture in our insistence on full inclusion of all God’s children, regardless of gender, race, ability/disability, sexual orientation or gender identity. They argue either that these values are not intrinsic to the Gospel, or perhaps that our adoption of them is not theological, but a mere acquiescence in the questionable values of American liberalism or post-modernism (that dreaded and maligned antithesis of “orthodoxy” and traditionalism). While the claims are often over-inflated, the essential question is legitimate: we have no business as the Church in simply mirroring culture, even where cultural values are consistent with the Gospel. But often the claims themselves are not understood as a call to theological integrity, but simply reveal the critics as feeling out of sync with both the actions of General Convention and their experience of contemporary society.

I am frequently inspired by the thoughtfulness and learning of my sisters and brothers in Christ, especially my fellow deputies, in their approach to the issues facing the Church. They inspire me to work against my personal shortcoming of too often seeing those who disagree with me as taking unreflective positions. Often I find myself and witness others being pleasantly surprised by shared understandings among those of different theo-political positions. Therefore, what I experience as true of those with whom I find myself in alignment, I assume is true of those with whom I do not find myself in alignment: we are all seeking to serve the same God and we accept the responsibility as leaders to discern the will of God for the community, as well as for our individual lives; and even though we won't always get it right, we trust that God is working with us to accomplish God's purpose.

In the end I can trust God even in the face of the differences of others and my own fallibility because I know that (as former Archbishop of Canterbury William Temple said): when we chose wisely, God reigns; when we chose foolishly, God reigns.

L. Zoe Cole is a lay member of St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Denver, CO and active in the Diocese of Colorado. Currently, she is a part-time municipal court judge and a full-time writer for EthicsGame.com, producer of web-based ethical decision making tools and training materials.

By Steven Charleston

The recent announcement that Seabury-Western will cease its degree granting program caught many people by surprise. Once the news soaked in, it also brought many people to a quite place for pensive reflection on the state and future of seminary education in our church. In effect, in saying farewell to “Seabury” (at least in its traditional form) we are reminding ourselves that in today’s economic reality we can take nothing for granted.

Whether we like to think about it or not (and Deans have to think about it all the time) education is a business. As much as we talk about spiritual formation and academic rigor: the bottom line is that none of these things will occur if we can not pay for them. The demise of a fine school like Seabury-Western underlines that point. And to make matters harder, current economic predictions tell us that nearly 40% of existing seminaries will follow Seabury’s path in the near future.

For a small denomination like ours, the economic realities of supporting several schools, while students wrack up crippling debt even before they are deployed, should make planning for the economic strategy of education a priority. Currently, the Council of Deans, the Presiding Bishop, faculty and others are all engaged in a dialogue to chart a more comprehensive approach to leadership development through our seminary network. As those recommendations and daydreams make their way through channels, it would be wise for every concerned Episcopalian to become informed about the issues and, more importantly, actively engaged in helping develop solutions.

Out-sourcing the training of our own leadership, even if it saves money, is not a long term answer for the future of ECUSA. We need to build on the foundation of scholarship, critical inquiry, Anglican spirituality and pragmatic application that have been core to our intellectual history as a faith community. We need to preserve our unique identity and heritage. We need to do so by developing a new model for a national seminary system that allows each member school to be distinctive in what they offer, while integrated in how they are supported.

While we may be distracted by all of the politics swirling around Lambeth this summer, I hope that we do not forget to consider the experience of Seabury-Western and how it is a wake up call for us to be committed to theological education in this church. Our purpose is not nostalgia, a desire to keep traditional schools going no matter what, but rather mission, a need to adapt and grow. Seminaries are the canaries in the mine for ECUSA. They represent the cutting edge of our creativity, credibility and community. If our seminaries are showing signs of health, then so is the church. If not, then not.

I will miss Seabury-Western, as it once was. But if I want to honor this community, I should not forget what it always strove to do: give ECUSA the best leadership possible. That is the legacy we need to preserve, not just for the sake of a memory, but for the hope of a future.

The Rt. Rev. Steven Charleston, former Bishop of Alaska, is president and dean of Episcopal Divinity School, and keeper of the podcasting blog EDS's Stepping Stones. A citizen of the Choctaw Nation, Bishop Charleston is widely recognized as a leading proponent for justice issues and for spiritual renewal in the church. He has written many articles on both Native American concerns and spirituality.

By George Clifford

In private conversations, Episcopal Church (TEC) leaders from various dioceses, both lay and clerical, tell me that two important reasons for lawsuits to retain title to the property of parishes and dioceses that wish to disaffiliate with TEC are fairness to the remnant that remains faithful to TEC and to deter other parishes from leaving. At first blush, those rationales may appear to justify TEC filing the lawsuits. However, neither rationale withstands careful scrutiny from a Christian perspective.

Quite simply, Christianity is about grace and love. For we who seek to follow Jesus, grace should take precedence over law. TEC operates through democratic processes. When a majority of a parish (or a diocese) votes to leave TEC, those who leave should recognize that the property belongs to TEC and, if they wish to have the property, offer to purchase it at fair market value. However, if those who wish to leave insist on keeping the property, grace demands that we accept that selfish decision rather than holding to the letter of the law. Although TEC may likely prevail in the courts, it will have further alienated the disaffected, turned its focus away from the gospel imperative, and wasted precious resources on an issue that is ultimately of little importance for God's business.

This choice may seem unfair to the minority who wish to remain with TEC but is gracious towards the larger number that decided to leave as well as to those whom God's love will touch because of TEC’s focus and resources invested in mission rather than legal actions. For example, the Diocese of Virginia has probably expended more than $1 million in lawsuits to retain the property of a number of parishes that recently voted to leave. The Diocese recently obtained a $2 million line of credit to further finance those suits. Although $30 million to $40 million of property is at stake, for those $3 million, and the countless hours of time the suits will require from bishops, priests, and laity, the Diocese of Virginia could fund several new missions to meet the needs of those who wish to remain and others. Successfully retaining large buildings for small congregations by winning the suits will burden those congregations with excessive overhead and probably instill a maintenance rather than missionary orientation.

Love between consenting adults does not seek to manipulate by using incentives or disincentives. Love wants what is best for the other, a choice that only the other can make. In human relationships, the unrequited lover who genuinely loves will sadly but freely permit his/her beloved to choose another. The same standard should apply to the community of God's people known as TEC.

Individuals who vote to separate from TEC are consenting adults. By so voting, they spurn TEC’s love for them. TEC may not have always communicated its love for those who vote to separate with sufficient ardor, frequency, or effectiveness. TEC may have failed to provide those who vote to separate with a leader or leaders committed to TEC’s vision of God's inclusive love. Representatives from other Churches in the Anglican Communion may have mischaracterized recent events within TEC or the Communion, seeking to fragment TEC. These representatives may have funded or employed manipulative tactics to encourage votes for disaffiliation. None of that diminishes the demand of our Baptismal Covenant in the Book of Common Prayer to “respect the dignity of every human being.”

Individuals, parishes, and dioceses that choose to leave TEC further fracture the Church’s already badly broken unity. Departures spiritually weaken TEC, leaving us bereft of the unique gifts and contributions that those who depart bring to the Church. After all, people, not physical plants or financial funds, are the Church’s most important resource.

Nevertheless, departures are not without precedent. The most notable Anglican precedent was the excommunication of the Church of England by the Church of Rome. Although this departure was not voluntary, the English knew that failing to alter their course would most likely force the Pope to act. King Henry seized excommunication as an opportunity to expropriate church property, disestablish monasteries, etc. Reform-minded clergy similarly saw a window of opportunity to make what they perceived as badly needed changes to liturgy and canon law. Following the American Revolution, Anglicans in the United States had to choose between swearing allegiance to the British crown and becoming U.S. citizens. If some had not chosen the latter course, TEC would probably not exist. Those who chose to depart from the Church of England took title to the Church’s property in the U.S. without paying compensation to the Church of England.

Anglicans from other provinces who have crossed jurisdictional lines to organize missions, receive parishes, or ordain clergy in the United States have certainly violated existing Anglican Communion structure and protocols. As much as I find such activities reprehensible, those activities do not result in those provinces or individuals losing their identity as members of the Anglican Communion. Likewise, those who leave TEC when accepted by a non-TEC diocese or another province do not cease to be either Christian or members of the Anglican Communion.

Establishing procedures for an orderly transfer of property and funds when a TEC parish or diocese votes to affiliate with another constituent member of the Anglican Communion and refuses to honor TEC’s right to the property will represent a costly gift of love. That gracious gift, whether it costs tens of thousands of tens of millions of dollars, honors and respects the dignity of those who have chosen to depart. That gift also emulates God's great gift of love in Jesus, a gift given in the full knowledge that it would be costly.

Sometimes, an unrequited lover’s beloved will desire, in retrospect, the gift of love that he or she earlier spurned. If that should happen among those who have chosen to depart from TEC, or who may do so in the future, then TEC’s gracious love in allowing them to go may inspire hope of a warm homecoming à la the parable of the prodigal son. To let go reluctantly and unwillingly of the beloved who spurns our love unintentionally sends the opposite message. God calls us to value persons, not property. Those leaving TEC should go with God's blessing and ours, albeit a blessing given with tears of sadness. We who remain must remain faithful to our calling and understanding of God's Word, treating all persons – members of TEC and others – with the dignity and respect due a child of God.

The Rev. George Clifford, Diocese of North Carolina, served as a Navy chaplain for twenty-four years, with tours at sea, with the Marine Corps, on the staff of the Chief of Chaplains, on exchange with the Royal Navy in London, as the senior Protestant chaplain at the Naval Academy, and as the senior chaplain at the Naval Postgraduate School.

By Andrew T. Gerns

The beauty of research like the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey released this week by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life is that in many ways it tells us what we already knew. The survey has confirmed and challenged a few hunches that arise out of my experience as a parish priest.

It is not particularly news to me that America’s life of faith is defined by fluidity. All I have to do is look out from the pulpit every Sunday. In my own parish, I have four basic groups of parishioners: people who used to be Catholic, people who used to be Lutheran, and people who used to be something else—they grew up in one of a myriad of other Christian traditions. Oh, I almost forgot, the fourth group of people are the ones who grew up and remain Episcopalian. That’s the smallest group in my own parish. And even then, there ought to be an asterisk because most of the folks who grew up Episcopalian were the children of parents who were themselves raised in another tradition.

Statistically speaking, I am the odd duck: a cradle Episcopalian who is the son and the son of a son of cradle Episcopalians.

So fluidity is a defining mark of American religious life. Forty-four percent of Americans belong to a religious group or tradition that is different than the one they grew up in.

But we live in an age where loyalty to brand or institution is a thing of the past. I remember visiting the Harry Truman presidential library, and one of the exhibits is a sampling of some of the cars that Truman owned. They were all Plymouths. He described himself as a “Plymouth man.“ Outside of the fact that they don’t even make Plymouths anymore, the idea of being eternally loyal to one make of car is a rare thing. Manufacturers are excited when they can get a buyer to stay with the same company, let alone the same brand, two cars in a row. And that’s not just true of cars.

I remember once meeting a self-described Episcopalian, who spoke with the pride of familiarity of things Prayer Book and his time as acolyte and the member of a Canterbury Club in college, telling me that he goes to a Lutheran Church. Why? Because it was closer to his house, he could walk or jog there, the service time was better and the kids knew kids who went there.

Speaking to a former Roman Catholic in my parish, she told me, partly in jest, the reason she is an Episcopalian is that our church doesn’t work so hard to make her mad. But that runs both ways. I remember talking to a United Methodist who used to be a member of my church; he told me that things our denomination did just “made me mad.”

Of the mobile 44%, roughly half choose to go to another Christian tradition. The other half leave the church altogether, with only a tiny fraction of those go to another religious tradition. Most of this other group completely drops out of religious life.

We should have seen this coming—and many of us have but have been at a loss to come to terms with it. The question now is how we respond. Seems to me that there two choices: we can be reactive or we can listen to what the culture is telling us and work to make the Gospel comprehensible and compelling in a free-market of ideas driven by personal freedom.

The reactive comes in many forms, but it is to me essentially an exercise in trying to hold back forces bigger than us. In trying to preserve what the past and its ways teach us, we can overdo it.

Overdoing it has recently landed on my pastoral lap. I have one member whose husband is Roman Catholic and they are raising their kids in both churches. They wouldn’t call it that, but they are. The kids go to parochial school but they go to church with either one parent or the other depending on work, sports and activity schedules. Mostly they go the Roman parish, but at least once a month, they show up in our parish. I didn’t think twice about it but I have been pulled in pastorally because the pastor at the Catholic Church is pressuring the family to only bring the kids to his congregation. This not only tears at Mom’s heart—and risks breaking covenants the couple made with each other at the time of their marriage in that very same church. It is also forcing the kids to choose not only between religions but, in effect, between parents. All of this is because the kids are hearing from the Catholic priest that they may only receive Communion in that church and no other. At the same time, they hear from me and my church that they are welcome to receive because they are baptized. The mixed message is causing the kids to ask uncomfortable questions at home.

This is a crisis happening in slow motion. For the family, the conflict is causing them to think ahead to an anticipated moment of truth where they will either have to choose one tradition over another, or else drop out altogether. I do what I can to keep the lines of communication open to both parents.

My conversations with the priest of the other church have been as revealing as they are frustrating. The priest is from Africa, which complicates matters. We don’t speak the same cultural language, and he sees only threat coming from my concern that we might work together. Besides the fact that he won’t say out loud his assumption that his tradition has primacy over mine, his basic argument is that he must “hold the line” for the sake of both the family and the Church.

He does not seem to realize that in pushing them to make one kind of commitment—one that might have made sense in another time or another cultural context—they might make a completely different choice. I am afraid that if he doesn’t lighten up they could choose another religious community (maybe mine, but just as easily another more neutral one) or none.

In our history there have been lots of American religious movements that have sought to “hold the line” against some cultural movement that was marching right past them. The current political transformation of American evangelicalism is an example of the tension between “holding the line,” with its desire to return to a more structured “past” (if one ever existed), and the need younger evangelicals have for religion to speak to the culture we have instead of the culture we choose.

In the face of a religious marketplace of ideas where people are free to explore, to go where they want, for whatever reason they want. I believe there is a difference between “holding the line” and articulating values that answer the traps, contradictions and realities of a culture that emphasizes absolute individual choice and responsibility over the values of community and tradition.

So what’s a church to do? If we don’t “hold the line,” what alternative do we have?

For one thing, we must become proficient at the language of the marketplace of ideas we live in. Like every human endeavor and institution, we tend to fight yesterday’s battles. We mainline churches tend to act as if we were still the bastions of privilege and status that we were before blue laws and civil religion went away. Recently, I had the chance to speak to the local Church Women United Lenten service. It was a chance for me to realize that speaking to yesterday’s church in yesterday’s language is not a problem restricted to Episcopalians.

Another thing we can do is to change our approach to evangelism. Since people are more likely to move between traditions for all kinds of reasons ranging from conscience to convenience, I believe we should adapt an attitude that is at once more clearly defined and more generous. We should be clearer about who we are and what we offer as Episcopalians, and we should acknowledge that people choose their faith communities for a variety of reasons and that, as wonderful as we are, we might not be the right place for everyone. Whereas denominationalism used to be defined solely in terms of governance and doctrine, today it may be seen as a diversity of styles and emphases.

In terms of the Gospel mandate to go into the world, to baptize and teach, we need to decide if the goal is to make more Episcopalians or to invite more people to Christ. I would suggest that the first is about institutional survival and preserving the past; but the second allows us the freedom to be at once who we are at our best and to give people the freedom—in a culture that trains us to make individual choices in the context of a competitive marketplace—to first choose faith, and then choose the community within which to nourish it.

The most difficult thing for a congregation that assumes a kind of brand loyalty will be to learn how to discover stability, purpose and renewal when we live in a mobile culture. We may need to content ourselves that we will be places of spiritual stability…for now.

Our biggest challenge will be for us Christians to see ourselves as one church with many, diverse institutional expressions: where having people know and follow Christ is more important than what flavor church they belong to.

The fluidity of American religious life drives us to be both better differentiated and more generous. This requires us to hold on to a tension. We must be clear about what we proclaim and yet let go and give the outcome to God. Our task is to proclaim and invite and to give to God the task of transformation and conversion.

The Rev. Canon Andrew Gerns is rector of Trinity Episcopal Church in Easton, Pa., and chair of the Evangelism Commission of the Diocese of Bethlehem. He is keeper of the blog Andrewplus.

By Heidi Shott

In 1979 a small island in the Southern Caribbean made a bold move by designating the real estate between the high tide mark and 200 feet below the surface a national marine park. Rules require dive boats to use moorings instead of reef-damaging anchors and make illegal spearfishing and the use of diving gloves, lest divers be tempted to touch vulnerable coralheads.

Nearly 30 years later Bonaire, one of six islands that comprise the Netherlands Antilles, has done more to preserve the complex ecosystem of the coral reef and the variety and abundance of fish life than anywhere else in the Caribbean. Not only have the Bonairians preserved their natural resource, but they have also ensured steady economic growth by drawing divers to their pristine underwater park year after year. My family has returned to dive off the island ten times over the last 15 years. We’re in a rut, but it’s an awfully nice rut and very affordable once you get there.

Diving is something my husband Scott and I have shared throughout our life together. The thrill of seeing a sea turtle or a eagle ray or to swim in the midst of a huge, flock-like school of silversides or to have dolphins frolic along side our boat, binds us in a way that is hard to explain. Scott learned to dive at 14 in the mid-seventies in the murky lakes and frigid quarries of West Virginia. I learned in 1985 in the tropical waters off the Micronesian island of Saipan when we were first married and teachers at the island parochial school.

During our most recent trip in January, our twin 14 year-old sons learned to dive. Finally we could dive together as a family. We spent two weeks diving, reading, playing scrabble and gin rummy, and watching the sun set from our porch with boat drinks and snacks – no phone, no email, no computer games, no TV, no diocesan or hospital emergencies that required our response. When we awoke in the morning, the drill was not the mad morning rush to school and work but to drink some tea with a slice of toast, gather our gear bags, squeeze into the bottom half of our wetsuits, and make our way down the dock to the happy camaraderie of the dive boat. “So where we goin’ this morning?” the day’s dive leader would ask.

“Salt Pier!”

“La Dania’s Leap!”

“Carl’s Hill!”

“Anywhere, it’s all good!”

Under the Caribbean sun we would arrive at the dive site and hoist our air tanks onto our backs, the acrid smell of hot neoprene in our noses. How delicious to let the weight of the gear flip us backwards off the side of the boat into the cool ocean.

As a diver, one skill I’ve paid close attention to over the years is controlling my buoyancy. I’ve learned to rise and fall in the water by gauging the amount of air in my lungs and to control my pitch and yawl by the flick of a fin or the twitch of a hand in the water. I’m not an expert – I don’t dive enough for that – but after a dive or two the fluency comes back. By maintaining neutral buoyancy a diver can get close to things…really close. This is important because so much of what goes on in your average coral reef neighborhood is tiny and complicated and if you want to get a sense of the intricacies of life on the reef, you need to be as close and as still as possible.

What an honor to be a visitor to this little corner of creation. It takes hundreds of years for the coral reef to grow: one generation of a hundred of species of coral dies to form a minute layer over the great exoskeleton of the reef, a millimeter at a time. One of my favorite things to do, and I taught my sons to do it as well, is to kick back from the reef into the deep water and pause to take in the whole wide expanse of the scene. We’re looking at part of creation that was in this very place doing its silent, magnificent thing at the same time Henry VIII was beginning to grow a teensy bit dissatisfied with Catherine of Aragon, when our boys were shooting themselves to bits at Second Bull Run, and when my grandfather was in the trenches faraway in France. For millennia tiny blue-lipped blennies have bravely defended their two inches of territory, orange frogfish have extended their deceptive lures, the spectacular and shy spotted drum has swum in and out of the hollows of brain coral…over and over and over again. For the past 60 years, since M. Cousteau and his friends figured out how to breath underwater, we humans have been privileged to observe this world for up to 75 minutes at a time.

Last month, on the day before we were to fly home and resume our life in Maine, I jumped off the dock with my fins, mask and snorkel. We’d made our last dive earlier in the day and were now allowing all the dissolved nitrogen built up in our blood to dissipate before we flew." (Getting the bends in an airplane is a seriously dumb, seriously dangerous rookiesque thing to do.) Before long, I was swimming 30 feet above the terrain I’d dived inches from a half dozen times in the past two weeks. From the surface I recognized certain distinctive coral heads, a large prickly West Indian Sea Egg, brilliant purple stovepipe sponges and delicate, translucent vase sponges, five different species each of parrotfish, angelfish, damselfish, and butterflyfish, and little groupers called Rock Hinds. I recognized them from 30 feet above only because I already knew them intimately from close at hand. Fish we don’t recognize at depth, we study in our fish books when we surface so we will know them the next time. Divers sport the geeky enthusiasm of birders, we just don’t often talk about it in public.

As I paddled around in the gorgeous turquoise, warmer than our mill pond ever gets at mid-summer, I started to finger this essay in my mind. Out of habit and propensity, I often contrast whatever situation I’m find myself in to the state of the Episcopal Church or the nuttiness of trying to live like a Christian in this complicated world. It’s an annoying habit and I’ve tried unsuccessfully to break it. I’ve compromised by only writing about one in five ideas that wash over me. Still, what I was thinking was something like this: If one part of God’s glorious creation - such as the ecosystem of the tropical coral reef – is so amazingly complex and fragile, doesn’t it follow that other parts of creation – the family, the congregation, the diocese, the Church, the Communion – each would be just as complex. Think of how nuanced and complicated the life of any congregation or diocese is. Yet, if we’re on the outside, how easy it is, with a little bit of distant observation, to feel we have captured the nut of a place in the palm of our hands.

As a diver at depth, so careful with my breathing to remain close but not intrusive amid the life and death action of the reef, I can observe a world that I don’t belong to. I can learn a lot, but I’ll never be a fish. I’ll never know what causes the Pederson’s Cleaning Shrimp to climb onto that particular anemone. As a snorkler 30 feet above, I can see the bigger coral heads and the bigger fish, but I’ll never see the two-inch blenny defending his little home in the crack before darting back to safety or the baby spotted moray eel poking its head and mouth full of teeth from a burrow.

But my inability to really, really know doesn’t stop me from pretending I know the undersea world. In his song, “Laughter,” Bruce Cockburn sang, “A laugh for the dogs barking at our heels, they don’t know where we’ve been. A laugh for the dirty window panes, hiding the love within.” I’ve always loved that line because he calls us on how willing we are to be dismissive of people with whom we don’t agree or with whom we have little in common. We’re especially good at that in the Church.

I don’t know how to change that, but scuba diving provides some good lessons: control your breathing, be still, watch carefully, and, for God’s sweet sake, don’t open your mouth.

Heidi Shott has served as press officer to Bishop Chilton Knudsen of Maine since 1998. She is also communications director of the Genesis Fund, a revolving loan fund that provides expertise and low-interest loans to nonprofits engaged in community development. Heidi's essays about trying to live a life of faith may be found at Heidoville.

By George Clifford

Last fall, I was a tourist in Sydney, Australia. On the advice of a kindly lady on duty at St. Andrew’s Cathedral, I went to St. James in Sydney for worship that morning (see part 1 of this essay). I expected to find a recognizably Anglican service in a properly equipped church building, i.e., one with an altar. St. James exceeded my expectations: an attractive building, outside and inside, complemented a well-done Eucharistic liturgy. Serendipitously, providentially, synchronistically, as a result of kismet, or however one’s theological worldview characterizes coincidence, that Sunday’s preacher at St. James was the Rev. Canon Kenneth Kearon, Secretary General of the Anglican Communion. During the service, the celebrant announced an afternoon forum led by Canon Kearon and that the Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson, on sabbatical from New Hampshire and present in the congregation, would attend.

During the afternoon session, Canon Kearon in his opening remarks stated that the energy and money involved in the Windsor Report process detracts from the Church’s mission. He said that as he travelled around the Communion, he observes an increasing number of people who want to get on with the mission of the Church. Anger is building among Anglicans, he declared, over the continuing furor linked to the Windsor Report because that furor is not very Anglican, i.e., opposing the opinion of others rather than embracing diversity.

Although The Episcopal Church has engaged in extensive listening processes on homosexuality and related issues since the early 1970s, most of the Communion has not done so, in spite of requests from Lambeth 1978 and 1988. Consequently, Canon Kearon noted each group tends to identify with the pain on its side and to view others as lunatics. Listening promotes hearing the pain on both sides while promoting theological conversation.

Bishop Robinson commented that efforts to separate issues of sexuality from mission create a false dichotomy if one views Jesus as reaching out to the marginalized, pulling them to the center within God's embrace. Otherwise, for Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgendered (GLBT) persons to return to the Church is analogous with an abused spouse returning to the abused.

Bruce McAteer, General Secretary of the Anglican Church in Australia, also present that afternoon, described an entire day at the just concluded General Synod of the Australian Church devoted to listening to the pain of GLBT people. That day at Synod, four Australian GLBT Anglicans told their stories of pain and exclusion in depth. The process entailed listening with no debate, no votes, offering one model for what other provinces or dioceses might do. Several people with whom I spoke that morning and afternoon who had attended the Australian General Synod volunteered affirmations of how powerful and transforming that listening process had been.

Canon Kearon said that world, divided by race, ethnicity, and religion, needs reconciliation, briefly mentioning his experiences in Northern Ireland. In particular, he lamented the lack of dialogue within the Anglican Communion on major, divisive issues such as the authority of the Bible (hermeneutics), the nature of authority within the Church, and the relation of faith to society. Two conflicting versions of polity currently co-exist within the Anglican Communion: one democratic and one authoritarian, impeding dialogue and relationships. TEC exemplifies the democratic polity, the Church in Nigeria the authoritarian. Canon Kearon identified the heart of Anglicanism as meeting together and forming relationships, a process complicated by those conflicting concepts of ecclesiastical authority.

As an example of the Anglican way, Canon Kearon pointed to the ongoing development of Christian bio-ethics. The Anglican Church takes science seriously and engages in dialogue with science while concurrently recognizing the dynamic nature of tradition and scripture. That creative dialogue has consistently put the Anglican Church at the leading edge of the developing field of bio-ethics without threatening to disrupt Anglican unity. The continuing bio-ethics dialogue thus illustrates the reconciling potential and power of Anglicanism’s relational character in dealing with substantive, divisive issues.

Canon Kearon remains confident the Anglican Communion will survive. He declined to speculate on possible changes beyond acknowledging that the Anglican Communion in the future will embody a different type of communion than it did in the past. The Archbishop of Canterbury invites bishops to attend Lambeth 2008, he reminded us, and the Archbishop has said an invitation neither certifies a Bishop’s orthodoxy nor invites a Bishop to participate in a boxing match.

Personally, the most insightful portions of the day were the times that I spent in private conversations with many of those attending. From those conversations, I have begun to formulate an answer to my question of why homosexuality has become the Anglican Communion’s central, divisive controversy. After all, attitudes about homosexually have never constituted a theologically defining issue of Christian identity.

Three significant factors apparently coalesce around controversies over homosexuality to make it the prime proxy for the major but publicly unacknowledged issues facing the Anglican Communion. Those issues are African nationalism, anti-globalism, and anti-Americanism. Sex, non-serendipitously, uniquely adds emotional energy to the controversy, galvanizing forces on both sides.

If I am correct in identifying those three factors, an identification for which I can take no credit but honor the request of others not to identify them, then Episcopalians in the United States aligned with another province place themselves in a vulnerable position. At some point, the current controversies will move to a backburner, no longer receiving extensive media attention and no longer being Anglicanism’s front burner issue. What will be the follow-on expressions of African nationalism, of anti-globalism, and of anti-Americanism? Will those three forces remain aligned or diverge? Will African provinces, beset by their own pressing problems, continue to remain interested and invested in American missions? Will U.S. sources continue to fund African missions in the U.S.?

Conversely, if those three issues are the real source of controversy, when will the Anglican Communion dare to engage those issues? What does The Episcopal Church stand to lose by raising those three issues for discussion within the Anglican Communion?

The Rev. George Clifford, Diocese of North Carolina, served as a Navy chaplain for twenty-four years, with tours at sea, with the Marine Corps, on the staff of the Chief of Chaplains, on exchange with the Royal Navy in London, as the senior Protestant chaplain at the Naval Academy, and as the senior chaplain at the Naval Postgraduate School. He taught philosophy at the Academy and ethics at the Postgraduate School.

By Howard Anderson

I had trouble writing this. I had trouble because people I love and respect a great deal, people who have served the Church well seem to be placing unity before justice. Now I know that we ordained types are guardians of the institution of the Church. Bishops, especially, are the symbols of unity in the church. I know how hard it is to play that role because I have done it, both in the parish and on diocesan staffs. But I also know my very wise spiritual director often asks me, “Howard, do you love the Church more than you love God?” I always answer an emphatic “NO!” But if I were looking at my track record, my behavior, it would be very hard to tell who I serve, the institution, or The Holy One, whose Christ said, “Whatever you do for the least of these, you do for me.”

The Rev. Dr. Marilyn McCord Adams, the American priest and Regius Professor of Theology at Christ Church, Oxford, wrote a very thoughtful and challenging (and might I add highly enjoyable) paper for the recent gathering of those committed to the full inclusion of all the Baptized at Seabury-Western Seminary. We are calling ourselves “the Chicago Consultation.” She points out that those of us committed to full inclusion in the life of the church of Gay and Lesbian Christians are so committed to inclusion that we often bend over backward to keep our more conservative brothers and sisters at the table. Some of these folks who cannot accept the full inclusion of GLBT members, use this commitment against us. She speaks of “sex and gender conservatives” who have lost their majority in the Episcopal Church had no problem excluding GLBT members from becoming priests or bishops, but now that they have lost that majority in the voting at General Convention, still exercise a kind of veto power because the majority of General Convention deputies find our commitment to Anglican Comprehensiveness (the biggest possible tent to include all) so absolute that we continue to throw our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters “under the bus” (witness B-033 which urged a moratorium on the consecration of additional gay or lesbian bishops) to try and appease the sex and gender conservative minority. It is not only unjust, it doesn’t work. When my grandson was told that there was a vote (B-033) which would make his Papi’s statement “anyone I baptize could become the Presiding Bishop” untrue, he was shocked. He said, “Yikes! That’s God’s decision.” I guess my talking to him about the Holy Spirit guiding the councils of the Church actually caught hold in his six year old brain.”

Think about it. Has anything the General Convention done prevented the schismatic bishops like Duncan and Schofield from pulling out of TEC? Has anything our successive Presiding Bishops have done appeased the sex and gender conservatives? Has trying to respond to the Windsor Report (simply a report, not a mandate from anyone with any authority in TEC or the Communion) stopped Archbishop Akinola and others from ordaining renegade American priests bishops in their overseas jurisdictions to function here in TEC? When the Archbishop of Canterbury, or conservative American bishops speak of compliance with the Windsor Report, do they EVER say much about the boundary jumping of Archbishop Akinola and company? They have even created out of thin air, new entities they are calling the “instruments of unity,” or as Professor Adams so aptly dubbed them, “The instruments of mischief,” to try and muscle TEC back into the fold of those saying “not yet” to full inclusion.

Professor Adams is right. The tolerance of the majority of General Convention Deputies who have voted strongly for full inclusion of GLBT members of our Church in all orders of ministry, has been used against us. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. So, shame on me. Shame on me for tolerating evil. Dr. Adams points out sharply in her paper that homophobia of the type exhibited by some of the sex and gender conservatives, most particularly, Archbishop Akinola who is advocating Nigerian legislation that would criminalize merely being homosexual, is evil. Period! Evil! Strong words, but who can deny their truth? Adams says “homophobia is a socially constructed sin, one that is built into us as part of our socialization.” She calls boldly for us to root this sin out of the institution and our hearts. Amen! Preach it sister! I am convicted. This sin of homophobia is both institutional sin (sin done in our name) and personal, (those things I have done, and left undone.)

And so I confess that I have been guilty of poor discernment, often sacrificing justice, and following Christ in breaking down the walls of prejudice, in order to keep peace in the family. I confess that I have sometimes allowed others to talk me into “toning it down,” and not pushing the agenda of inclusion of all the baptized quite so hard, so I would leave a place for sex and gender conservatives to stand. I confess this, and I know there are many whom I love and respect that have succumbed to this same demand to “slow down so that the rest will catch up” when it comes to the full inclusion of GLBT members of TEC. I have spoken out, but mainly in safe places where most people agree with me. And so I repent, and speak it here for all to see. I have been guilty of the sin of cowardice in not doing more to root out the sin of homophobia in the Church.

Some would say that the group that gathered as “The Chicago Consultation” were pushing a “gay agenda.” Nonsense. It is nothing less than a Gospel Agenda. No one ever said following Jesus Christ to the edges of society to bring the “least of these” (however each society creates ‘leastness”) to the center would be easy. I have watched friends who are bishops not want to be publicly associated with “The Chicago Consultation.” They fear that their effectiveness, or their ability to function collegially in the House of Bishops would be compromised. They fear that their ability to “guard the faith, unity and discipline of the Church” in their diocese would be compromised. They may be right. But look at the conservative bishops. They organize into “networks and synods, and openly join groups with acronyms galore- CANA, AAC, IRD and more. Perhaps some of their appeal is that they are willing to step up and claim what they believe. However much I disagree with them, you have to give them credit for standing up for beliefs.

Something very predictable happens when we ordained types get together. My mother, when her Alzheimer’s disease had taken away her inhibitions, but not her words, said as she reached up to touch my clerical collar, “Cuts off circulation to the brain!” We get swept up in a wave of camaraderie, we bond with one another, relating effectively to one another becomes a prime goal of the gathering. So often, those outside that circle, (the 99% who are in the lay order) are not factors. But our General Convention’s genius is that lay AND clergy are together and vote. This tempers the “camaraderie effect” of a meeting of the House of Bishops or a clergy conference where the laity are excluded thereby rendering such rarified gatherings less comprehensive of the spirit of the Church than General Convention. I once sat with Michael Peers, the Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, as we listened to a debate on the issue of human sexuality in the American House of Bishops. One conservative bishop rose and said, in stentorian tones (and a British accent) “The only sexual activity sanctioned by Holy Scripture is life long, monogamous, matrimony.” In the spirit of brotherhood (pre-Barbara Harris) the other bishops nodded thoughtfully, and the gallery, in which we sat, erupted into gales of laughter. Murmurs of “What about Abraham? Wooo..Solomon” and the chuckling continued. Michael leaned over and said, “We have a single house, and the lay and clergy wouldn’t put up with such foolishness at our Synod.”

I re-read the Prayerbook service “Ordination of a Bishop” today. And like the Baptismal Covenant, the Bishops promise to “be chief priest and pastor, to encourage and support all baptized people.” They also promise to boldly proclaim and interpret the Gospel stir up the conscience” of the people, and to “defend those who have no helper.” This sometimes seems to conflict with guarding the unity of the Church. These people whom the people and the Spirit elect to be our Bishops face a daunting job of discernment on where to come down on these two promises. It seems an irony, but also no mistake, that right next to the “Ordination of a Bishop,” in the Book of Common Prayer, is the Burial Office. Dear me, they face some hard and taxing challenges. We should all be grateful that they are willing to serve. And do, please, prayer for our bishops.

But as for me, my spiritual director’s question, and Marilyn McCord Adam’s challenge to “root out the sin of homophobia” are foremost in my discernment. Those of us in TEC who are now in the majority of The General Convention deputies, should not be, as Adams suggests, “held hostage" by our commitment to inclusivity so that we give in when conservative threaten to leave if they don’t get their way. For many Conventions the votes went against inclusiveness. I went home, as the first clerical deputy from my diocese and had to say to the GLBT members of the churches, “the Spirit has said not yet.” No conservative ever said to me that the Holy Spirit was not guiding the Councils of the Church when the votes went their way. But all of a sudden, when the Spirit guided the General Convention in the direction of full inclusion, our conservative brothers and sisters changed their tune. “The Spirit of God was not there.”

I beg to differ. The Spirit of God has moved through the Councils of the Episcopal Church. It has taken us to a difficult place. But it is a goodly place. It is a place where Jesus Christ would be more comfortable than those parts of the Church where the gifts and charisms all the baptized cannot be exercised. That’s what I believe. That’s where I will stand, with the much maligned, under fire Episcopal Church. And I stand with her proudly. I’m not going to be blackmailed any more with threats of leaving. I’m not going to let others use my commitment to including all of the Baptized in my Church, at whatever level the Spirit gives them gifts to serve.

When Bishop Duncan said he would try to pull his whole Diocese out of TEC, he quoted Martin Luther. “Here I stand. I can do no other.” Ditto Bishop Duncan, ditto. Me too.

The Rev. Canon Howard Anderson, Ph.D., is president and warden of Cathedral College at Washington National Cathedral.

Editor's note: In February, the Dar es Salaam Communique from the Primates of the Anglican Communion created uncertainty in the Episcopal Church about what individuals or bodies had the authority to respond to the Primates' recommendations. The Episcopal Church's response has been made, but the nature of authority in our Church remains poorly understood. Below, Sally Johnson, chancellor to Bonnie Anderson, president of the House of Deputies, lays out her opinion in the summary of a more detailed memo tht can be found here.

Summary of Authority in The Episcopal Church as it Relates to the Demands of the February 2007 Primates Communiqué

Prepared March 2007. Following review and comments, released for wider distribution, December, 2007.

Following is a summary of document “Discussion of Authority in the Episcopal Church and the Dar es Salaam Primates Communiqué of February 2007”. This summary is prepared by Sally Johnson, Chancellor, at the request of the President of the House of Deputies, Bonnie Anderson. In analyzing the “role, responsibilities and potential response of the Executive Council” to the Communiqué, and especially in light of the House of Bishops Resolution to the Executive Council on the Pastoral Scheme, it was necessary to carefully review and consider Executive Council’s authority, role and responsibilities in relationship to the authority of the Presiding Bishop and the House of Bishops.

The Communiqué

The Communiqué asked the House of Bishops to take two actions prior to
September 30, 2007:

make an unequivocal common covenant that the bishops will not authorize any Rite of Blessing for same-sex unions in their dioceses or through General Convention (cf TWR, Para. 143, 144)

confirm that the passing of Resolution B033 of the 75th General
Convention means that a candidate for Episcopal orders living in a same-sex union shall not receive the necessary consent …unless “some new consensus on these matters emerges across the Communion (cf TWR, Para 134).

The Communiqué also purports to establish a “Pastoral Scheme,” consisting of a Pastoral Council and Primatial Vicar, to work with congregations and dioceses in The Episcopal Church who do not agree with the actions of General Convention regarding the consecration of Bishop Robinson and the blessing of same-sex unions. This portion of the Communiqué is lengthy, complicated, and stated in generalities rather than specifics.

Some of the aspects of the Pastoral Scheme include:

A Pastoral Council that would act on behalf of the Primates made up of two persons nominated by the Primates, two appointed by the Presiding Bishop, and a Primate appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury to chair the Council;

The Council would work “in cooperation with The Episcopal Church, the Presiding Bishop and the leadership of the bishops participating in the scheme proposed below” to negotiate structures for pastoral care complying with the Windsor Report and the Primates’ requests in the Lambeth Statement of October 2003, authorize protocols for the functioning of such a scheme, including the criteria for participation of bishops, dioceses and congregations and take whatever reasonable action is needed to give effect to this scheme and report to the Primates;

The Pastoral Council and the Presiding Bishop would invite bishops expressing a commitment to “the Camp Allen principles” to participate in the Pastoral Scheme;

The participating bishops, in consultation with the Pastoral Council and with the consent of the Presiding Bishop, would nominate a Primatial Vicar responsible to the Council. The Presiding Bishop in consultation with the Pastoral Council would delegate specific powers and duties to the Primatial Vicar.

The Communiqué also urged that all litigation over property in The Episcopal Church be suspended, subject to several conditions.

The House of Bishops March 2007 Response

The House of Bishops took three actions in response to the Communiqué.

It adopted the statement, “To the Archbishop of Canterbury and the members of the Primates’ Standing Committee” stating that “[a]lthough we are unable to accept the proposed Pastoral Scheme, we declare our passionate desire to remain in full constituent membership in both the Anglican Communion and the Episcopal Church and inviting the Archbishop and members of the Primates’ Standing Committee to join the House of Bishops for three days of prayer and conversation at the earliest possible opportunity.

It adopted “A Statement from the House of Bishops- March 20, 2007” which gave five reasons the Pastoral Scheme would be injurious to the Church. It would violate our church law in that it calls for a delegation of primatial authority not permitted under our Canons and compromises our autonomy not permitted under the Constitution, it would change the character of the Windsor process and the covenant design process, it would violate our founding principles after our liberation from colonialism and it would depart from our English Reformation heritage in abandoning the generous orthodoxy of our Prayer Book tradition and sacrifice “the emancipation of the laity for the exclusive leadership of high-ranking Bishops;”

It adopted a “Mind of the House of Bishops Resolution Addressed to the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church” urging the Executive Council decline to participate in the Pastoral Scheme.

Authority in the Episcopal Church

Authority of the General Convention

The General Convention holds all authority in The Episcopal Church other than the limitation that it cannot change the Core Doctrine of the Church. It has delegated various responsibilities and authority to a number of bodies and offices in the Church. The General Convention is the only body authorized to amend the Constitution, Canons and Book of Common Prayer. No other body or office holder in the Church can take action that binds the Church on a subject covered by the Constitution, Canons, or Book of Common Prayer. Only General Convention can pass resolutions that bind the Church. No other body or office holder in the Church can make a binding interpretation of the Constitution, Canons, Book of Common Prayer or General Convention resolutions. The General Convention can amend the Canons, set policy or otherwise direct whether and in what ways the Church’s interest in the property of dioceses and congregations should be protected.

Authority of the Executive Council

The Executive Council’s primary duty is to “carry out the program and policies adopted by the General Convention. The Executive Council shall have charge of the coordination, development and implementation of the ministry and mission of the Church.” In its capacity as the Board of Directors of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society it has the power to direct the disposition of the moneys and other property of said Society in accordance with the provisions of the Canons and the orders and budgets adopted or approved by the General Convention. The Executive Council is granted extensive authority to act for the Church between General Conventions but it is not vested with all of the powers of General Convention.

In terms of the Primates’ requests the Executive Council does not have the authority to prohibit the blessing of same sex unions. Bishops Diocesan have the authority under the Constitution and Book of Common Prayer to authorize forms of worship in their own dioceses. The Constitution and Book of Common Prayer would have to be amended to take that authority away from Bishops Diocesan. General Convention has the authority to authorize other forms of worship and the Constitution would have to be amended to take that authority away from it.

The Executive Council does not have any authority to make, change or issue a binding interpretation of a General Convention resolution such as B033. The Constitution and Canons would have to be amended to prohibit persons living in same sex unions from becoming bishops because the requirements and limitations on who may hold that office are in the Constitution and Canons.

The Executive Council does not have the authority to authorize any portions of the Pastoral Scheme. The Constitution and Canons would have to be amended to authorize the structures and delegation of authority contemplated by the Pastoral Scheme.

In the absence of action by General Convention the Executive Council can set policy or otherwise direct whether or in what ways the Church’s interest in the property of dioceses and congregations should be protected.

Authority of the Presiding Bishop

The responsibilities and authority of the Presiding Bishop can generally be divided into several broad categories. The Presiding Bishop makes appointments to various Church bodies and positions and fills vacancies, has responsibilities regarding bishops in the Church including overseeing the election of bishops, deciding who will consecrate them, overseeing the resignation or removal of bishops for non-disciplinary reasons, and taking certain actions in the ecclesiastical discipline process of bishops. The Presiding Bishop has responsibilities for unusual congregations and ministries, reports annually to the Church, speaks God’s Word to the Church and to the world as the representative of The Episcopal Church and has responsibility for leadership in initiating and developing the policy and strategy of the Church. She presides over the House of Bishops and Joint Sessions of General Convention, is the President of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society, and the President, Chair and chief executive officer of the Executive Council.

“The office of Presiding Bishop is a constitutional office, the tenure and duties of which are prescribed by canons, and he has no duties or powers save as so prescribed.” Annotated Constitution and Canons for the Government of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America otherwise known as The Episcopal Church (“Annotated Constitution and Canons”, p. 203.)

The Presiding Bishop’s authority to delegate her responsibilities to others is limited to choosing a bishop of The Episcopal Church to act in her stead as one of the three bishops of The Episcopal Church to act as chief consecrators at the consecration of a bishop and to delegating some functions “prescribed in these Canons” to persons in “positions established by the Executive Council.”

In terms of the Primates’ requests the Presiding Bishop does not have the authority to prohibit Bishops Diocesan from authorizing the blessing of same sex unions in their dioceses nor can she prohibit future General Conventions from authorizing such blessings.

The Presiding Bishop cannot change or make a binding interpretation of a General Convention resolution such as B033.

The Presiding Bishop does not have the authority to approve any parts of the Pastoral Scheme because the Constitution and Canons would have to be amended to implement it. Although she could appoint two persons to the Pastoral Council, she should decline to do so because she does not have the authority to delegate any of her duties or responsibilities to the proposed Pastoral Council.

In the absence of action by General Convention or the Executive Council the Presiding Bishop can set policy or otherwise direct whether or in what ways the Church’s interest in the property of dioceses and congregations should be protected.

Authority of the House of Bishops

The authority of the House of Bishops to take actions that bind the Church at meetings between General Conventions or at General Convention without the concurrence of the House of Deputies is quite limited. It may, for example, consent to bishops’ resignations, elect bishops for non-diocesan ministries, including the Presiding Bishop, and for dioceses upon request of the diocese, establish Missions within the boundaries of The Episcopal Church but outside diocesan boundaries, call special meetings of General Convention, and take some actions in the ecclesiastical disciplinary process of bishops.

In terms of the Primates’ requests the House of Bishops does not have the authority to prohibit the authorization of blessings of same sex unions by Bishops Diocesan within their own dioceses nor can it prohibit future General Conventions from authorizing such Rites.

It cannot change or make a binding interpretation of a General Convention resolution such as B033.

The House of Bishops does not have the authority to approve any parts of the Pastoral Scheme or to amend any parts of the Constitution or Canons that would need to be changed to implement it.

The House of Bishops has no authority to set policy or otherwise direct whether or in what ways the Church’s interest in the property of dioceses and congregations should be protected other than as a bishop may have authority to set policy or make decisions within his or her own diocese.

Sally Johnson is the chancellor to Bonnie Anderson, President of the House of Deputies.

By Robert L. McCan

Two trials occurred in Rooms 5-E and 5-D of the Fairfax County Circuit Court of Virginia building and ran for five days, ending on Tuesday, November 20, 2007. The court judge, Randy I. Bellows, insisted that theological issues be excluded, not wanting to enter the “thicket” of differences at that level but preferring to focus on the legal question of whether former Diocese of Virginia congregations now composing part of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA) “divided” from The Episcopal Church or was alienated and withdrew.

The stakes are high. Over $30,000,000 in property will be awarded the winning side, or divided in a manner determined by the judge. Perhaps even larger issues are being sorted out for The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. Can parishes and/or dioceses break away or “separate” from The Episcopal Church and keep the keys and the chalice? By what logic can CANA, composed of former Episcopal parishes, or other similar splinter groups, legally affiliate with an Anglican Church in another part of the world? Is the principle of geographic integrity of a diocese to be upheld or are unsupervised church plantings and competitive Anglican structures to be approved by the Archbishop of Canterbury in an ecclesiastical “free market” environment?

Eleven parishes are involved in the two trials which followed each other and which are to be merged into a single verdict. In fact, the two trials are a consolidation of 22 separate court cases.

CANA brought the first trial at the urging of the breakaway Falls Church Anglican congregation. The parish faced a financing problem. They made plans to build a large complex of facilities on a strip mall they had purchased across the street from the historic building, additions and grounds. The purchase was made several years ago when they were still a functioning parish in the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia. The price tag for new facilities is $14 million. The parish is reported to have $5 million in the bank, carefully excluded from operating church funds, in case The Episcopal Church should be awarded the assets. But when the parish explored the financing of $9 million they learned that mortgage money was not available until a decision was reached on property ownership. Hence the immediate occasion for their lawsuit.

The first trial asks the judge to require The Episcopal Church to relinquish ownership of the property at each of the eleven parishes if by majority vote each decided to “separate” from its historic roots and join the Anglican Communion.

Testimony focused on an obscure law passed by the Virginia General Assembly in 1867, known as the “Virginia Religious Freedom Act.” That law stated that when there is a denominational “division” local congregations may decide by majority vote with which side to affiliate. CANA’s case hinges on whether their interpretation of that law applies to the current situation. They claim the word “division” is key and they submitted 174 documents to buttress their case.

In the second trial The Episcopal Church brought a counter suit against CANA. Its purpose is to recover the property, which it alleges, belongs to The Episcopal Church and is being unlawfully occupied by CANA congregations.

A bit of history is needed to better understand the case for CANA. The 1867 statute is known as “57-9” because the Virginia Code, Section 57-9 contains the law in question. John Baldwin of Augusta County was Speaker of the Virginia House. He was also an attorney and a Methodist. There were 18 Methodist congregations in Augusta County that wanted to “separate” from one side of a divided Methodist Church following the Civil War and join the other side. After pushing the law through the state legislature Baldwin brought the case that gave congregations the right to keep their property when a majority of members voted to “divide,” leaving one branch for the other. In the end, 29 Methodist congregations in Virginia took advantage of the law in that era.

CANA called two experts, reputable scholars, one being Professor Mark Valeri of Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, Virginia. Most of his testimony related to Methodists, Baptists and Presbyterians, the three largest Protestant denominations in the nineteenth century in the south, with emphasis on the Presbyterians, his own denomination. To the writer it appeared that he did a computer search in the church history books, in newspapers and in church periodicals, using the word “divided” to pull up references. The word was used often to describe multiple “splits” in each denomination, the most obvious being the separations caused by the Civil War.

Then came the question as to whether The Episcopal Church had endured such “divisions.” The scholar pointed to a “division” within The Episcopal Church during the Civil War. He testified that no bishops or dioceses in the south attended General Convention. Indeed, dioceses in the south formed their own constitution and canons and even consecrated a new bishop.

Dr. Ian Douglas, a professor at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass., was an expert witness for The Episcopal Church. He explained that The Episcopal Church has never had a hostile “division.” For him, there are two meanings of the word “division,” one popular and the other technical or legal. Any dispute leading to alienation and separation is often called a “division” in popular parlance. However, technically, according to the constitution and canons of the Church, a “division” can only occur when voted by General Convention, according to rules set forth in governing structures.

CANA tried to show that the Diocese of Virginia had divided into three dioceses within the state. However, Professor Douglas explained this was a proper division because the Church approved. Likewise, several countries divided from the national church. For example, Mexico divided and became a national church known as a Province. Again, this was decided in an orderly fashion with the consent of the entire Church.

Dr. Douglas responded to the claim that The Episcopal Church “divided” during the Civil War. He pointed out that it was physically impossible for church people in the south to travel north for General Convention during the war. He agreed that sentiment in the church of the south favored separation at that time. However, The Episcopal Church in the north never approved a division and the south was welcomed back to General Convention when the war ended.

Dr. Douglas sought to make the case that it is impossible for CANA churches to “divide” by separating. The moment they declare their independence, the clergy violate their ordination vows; the moment the vestries vote to leave The Episcopal Church they violate their vows as members of vestries to be faithful to The Episcopal Church. Likewise a bishop and a diocese violate their prescribed commitment to the national church the moment they attempt to revise their constitution to separate. It is not possible for them to “separate” because the law that governs vestries, clergy and bishops requires approval of the Church before a division can be legal.

Professor Douglas characterized the Anglican Communion, on the other hand, as “a family of Churches.” He contended that members of a family may be alienated for a time but they are always members of the family at the deepest level. An attorney for CANA tried to establish a link between CANA and the Anglican Communion and suggested that the “Instruments of Communion” could be used to expel the American Church from the Communion. Professor Douglas conceded that there has been an alienation that may lead to a temporary formal separation for some members of “the family.” He pointed out, however, that within The Episcopal Church there is a formal legal link of one body to another—the parish to the diocese and the diocese to The Episcopal Church at the national level. However, there is no such linkage to the Anglican Communion but only informal ties based on tradition, shared history and liturgy. CANA hinted that the Anglican Communion is a global confessional church with established “orthodox” doctrinal positions that the Instruments of Communion have a right to enforce.

CANA was asked about its place in the Anglican Communion. The Rt. Rev. Martyn Minns, formerly rector at Truro parish in Fairfax City, explained that they are now attached by his consecration and by a formal affiliation of the parishes to the Anglican Church in Nigeria. Their participation in the Anglican Communion is by way of their linkage with Nigeria. When asked by counsel for The Episcopal Church, Bishop Minns acknowledged that he has not yet been invited to The Lambeth Conference, held every ten years and scheduled for 2008.

Attorneys for The Episcopal Church contended that Judge Bellows should take into account the hierarchy of the parish, the diocese and the national church. CANA denied that this linkage is essential as ultimately binding if for sufficient reason they feel a gospel imperative to separate.

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori testified by way of a televised deposition that lasted some 54 minutes. She was courteous yet clear in her conviction that CANA congregations had no right to leave the Church and take the property. When pressed to offer some negotiated settlement on property she was clear that The Episcopal Church would not negotiate with a church from another country coming into a diocese and competing with that established diocese. Asked to explain, she stated this violated current and ancient practice. Polity in all parts of the Anglican world has been for a bishop in one area to get permission from the bishop in another before going there to perform any type of ministerial function. She saw the establishment of parallel parishes and their vocal criticism of The Episcopal Church as confusing to the public and harmful to the church.

Bishop Jefferts Schori was reminded that she had signed the statement of the Primates at the Dar es Salaam meeting. It required The Episcopal Church to repent and pledge to renounce the practice of consecrating homosexual bishops and blessing same-gender “unions” or marriages. She responded that she signed to indicate that the statement represented what transpired. She indicated that she had no authority to bind the bishops or The Episcopal Church to such a statement.

Finally, when asked how she could support legal action against CANA churches when the Primates and the Archbishop of Canterbury had urged the church to settle disputes over church property within the church rather than through the courts, she responded, “I have a duty to protect the assets and the integrity of The Episcopal Church.”

Judge Bellows indicated on several occasions that he would go to great lengths not to give any indication as to how he would decide the case. He was determined, he said, to give latitude to each side in order for each to fully present its case. However, he was also eager, he indicated, to keep testimony relevant; he wanted to complete the case within a reasonable time period. On two occasions the lead attorney for The Episcopal Church, Bradfute W. Davenport surprised the court by his brevity. An hour was allotted before lunch on the first day for his opening statement. He took seven minutes, laid out the case in simple, direct terms and sat down. We had an early lunch the first day.

The other occasion was on the last day when Bishop Peter James Lee of the Diocese of Virginia took the stand. He had attended the prior day, waiting to testify. When he finally took the stand the excitement and tension reached a crescendo. CANA members filled the courtroom. Many of the CANA attorneys, it could be observed, had notebooks filled with questions for the cross-examination. The CANA leaders had threatened legal action against Bishop Lee if he or any officer of the diocese “set foot on or trespassed on the property occupied by CANA congregations.”

Davenport asked Bishop Lee his name, age, where he attended college, then seminary. He asked when Bishop Lee was ordained, where he served as a priest, when he was consecrated as a bishop and how many General Conventions he has attended. After a few more “housekeeping” questions including clarification of various designations for bishop and the function of each type, he suddenly declared, “No more questions.”

CANA was confused. All of their cross-examination preparation was predicated on Davenport delving into the host of issues and events that led to the separation and the declaration that the priests are no longer recognized in The Episcopal Church. There was virtually nothing to cross-examine. The CANA attorneys attempted to raise issues but they were over-ruled because they had not been raised in the initial examination.

The Episcopal Church called one more witness, David Beers, Chancellor to The Episcopal Church. His testimony largely paralleled that of other witnesses. Other witnesses that were to testify the last day were released by agreement of the two sides and the trial ended a day early.

At the conclusion of the trial Judge Bellows stated that should he decide in favor of CANA, based on the 1867 Virginia statute, he would be prepared to hold another trial to examine the constitutionality of that statute. The Episcopal Church attorneys stated they would enter challenges under three constitutional headings: the contract clause, the free exercise clause and the establishment clause. He indicated a willingness to set a new court date within the next month, if necessary, so that a final decision could be rendered by mid-January, 2008. At that time another hearing will be required to determine the precise nature and procedure for distribution of church property.

The writer represents only himself in presenting these observations and reflections. He is one of no more than two or three persons, other that official representatives, who attended the entire trial and whose bias was toward The Episcopal Church. He recently moved from Alexandria to Falls Church, and with his wife, has moved his membership from Christ Church to The Falls Church Episcopal, continuing congregation.

On the Saturday night during the trial the entire congregation of The Falls Church Anglican was called together for a prayer vigil that God’s church might prevail. A spokesman for CANA, Jim Oaks, issued a press release after the trial ended which said, “We remain confident in the success of our legal position. The decision of the Episcopal Church and the diocese to reinterpret scripture caused the 11 Anglican churches to sever their ties.” And in comments in the weekly bulletin at The Falls Church Anglican rector John Yates noted how much has changed for the better in the past year since they left The Episcopal Church. He wrote, “We are out of a dying denomination…I can hardly contain my enthusiasm.”

Robert L. McCan holds a Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland and an M.Div. from Yale Divinity School. His last position prior to retirement was Associate Professor of Political Ethics at Wesley Theological Seminary. He is author of "Justice For Gays and Lesbians: Crisis and Challenge in the Episcopal Church." Bob recently moved his church membership to The Falls Church Episcopal.

By Martin L. Smith

I was walking along P Street in Washington, D. C., the other day pondering a phrase our Presiding Bishop used in a recent webcast, when she spoke of the need for the church to move on from the controversies surrounding sexuality to “refocus on matters of life and death like starvation, education, medical care.” I know she was using “life and death” to mean “of the highest priority.” But for gay people it’s hard to hear straight folks using language that, even inadvertently, seems to imply that the struggles we must undergo are not matters of life and death. In fact they are—sometimes in the most literal way. Ironically, I found myself halting outside the paint store on the corner of 15th Street NW. It was here that my partner and I experienced the second of two attempted gay-bashing assaults.

It happens so quickly, as any victim of a street crime will tell you. Thugs suddenly came pouring out of a huge SUV. They screamed for our blood using anti-gay curses that left their motive in no doubt. As we ran for our lives, with the pounding of their boots on the sidewalk drumming in our ears, we never thought we could outrun them. But we eventually shook them off when we reached an area perhaps too brightly lit for them. This nightmare repeated a similar incident several months earlier that began outside the fire station on 13th Street, as we were walking home after supper. We also managed to escape that time, ending up in an alley retching from the effort, just glad to be alive.

Perhaps you’re thinking murder is an exaggeration. Well, no. A priest friend of mine was the victim of a gay-bashing in Logan Circle so violent that he would almost certainly have died had not a horrified passerby made a 911 call that brought a police car quickly to the scene. I also think of a seminarian friend, who was so brutally smashed up by a homophobic assailant wielding a tire iron that five operations on his head and brain were required. He was too disabled to be ordained and died two years later in an accident caused by the side effects of his medications.

Life and death. I hope we will find other language that can unite us around a cause that our Presiding Bishop is perfectly right to emphasize—global claims of mission and justice. However, I hope we’ll never imply that the claims of gay and lesbian folk to equality, respect and security lie outside the realm of life and death matters. We must be careful what we say.

What will we say when we are trying to comfort two parents, friends, whose teenage son, an acolyte, has committed suicide, leaving a note about his despair in the face of bullying and his lack of faith in the possibility of happiness? They know that issues of sexual orientation are matters of life and death, not merely an irritating distraction from nobler causes. What do we say when a priest friend who has moved into a neighboring parish finds herself being trailed for by a stalker, whom she discovers to be an agent of an anti-gay organization notorious for its tactics of defamation? Not an issue of life and death?

As I paused outside the paint store, I realized I had never told the story of the two attempted assaults from which I had narrowly escaped to more than a few friends. I didn’t want to worry my family, and these are grotesque stories for a middle-aged clergyman to recount. Yet the real reason is that most gay folk are trained to take their vulnerability for granted. We suck it in. But maybe we must change that. Straight people enjoy innumerable unearned privileges denied to gays, just as white folk have unearned privileges denied to people of color. We shouldn’t add another one to the list, the privilege of being spared the pain of hearing about our wearying and incessant experiences of being attacked, condescended to, marginalized, insulted and patronized.

No one looks forward more eagerly than gay folk to the day when issues like the eligibility of partnered gay and lesbian priests for the office of bishop will sink to a lower place in our order of priorities. But in the painful meantime, while the progress of equality in the ministry is temporarily halted, the task of making sure that the life and death stories of gay and lesbian people are heard grows in urgency. And gay and lesbian Christians will have to become more outspoken, not less, even in the face of pressure from those who seem to be signaling that it is high time we fell silent again.

Martin L. Smith is a well-known spiritual writer and priest. He is the senior associate rector at St. Columba’s in Washington, D.C.

By Donald Schell

For two wonderful days at the beginning of this month, I helped lead a workshop on Music that Makes Community at St. Paul’s Chapel of Trinity Church Wall Street, the colonial church that fronts on Broadway and whose churchyard faces the World Trade Center/Ground Zero site. Sunday after the workshop I sat in the congregation at St. Paul’s for their 10 a.m. liturgy. It was one of the most powerful experiences of our church’s work and worship I have ever had. The murmur of visitors, the impossibility of handling four to five hundred pilgrims an hour with greeters, the pilgrims themselves finding their own way and having their own private reasons for their visit all destroyed any hope that the church could be a place of seclusion, refuge or pious meditation. This was the great work of the church, the public work of liturgy.

When I first visited St. Paul’s in the late 1960’s, it was essentially a museum, George Washington’s Church in New York City. The stunning human losses of 9/11 changed that beyond recognition. When Trinity’s staff saw that St. Paul’s Chapel was undamaged by the fiery collapse of the twin towers next door, they boldly chose to dedicate the historic chapel for the duration of demolition and recovery as a holy place of hospitality to the New York firemen, police, and construction workers at the Ground Zero site. Trinity staff and hundreds of volunteer chaplains from around the country offered rest, comfort, counsel and help for those whose brutal work was combing through hot rubble for genetically identifiable fragments of the dead that grieving family members might bury.

Trinity’s hospitality to a nation’s heroes made St. Paul’s a pilgrimage site. Something like a million and a half visitors a year - imagine an unbroken stream of 400 strangers an hour - wander through to remember, see and reflect on 9/11 displays. As at the Viet Nam Memorial in Washington D.C., some do come to pray, but few kneel or make any outward show. Others seem to be tourists, muted tourists who want to include this bit of history in their trip and tell people at home, ‘I was there.’

For any who remember the pre- 9/11 St. Paul’s and haven’t been there recently, I should add that less than a year ago, Stuart Hoke and the other Trinity staff took another bold step to make the chapel’s welcome more evident – hoping to gather people into a circle of prayer, they removed the long forward-facing pews from the 1960’s to make space for a barrier-free oval of chairs around a central altar. St. Paul’s website has a good slide show picturing the changes and giving its rationale at http://www.saintpaulschapel.org/

Twenty of us, clergy and church music leaders from around the country gathered in this open space round the table for our workshop to talk, and reflect and make music, specifically developing a practice of the most traditional and modern kind of church music – singing we learn by ear and by heart, singing without books. All day our workshop sessions, our worship and even our mid-day meal was at the center of a swirling sea of people, all of America, the world. When we were singing we could feel the music touch them (and sometimes we forgot they were there and lost ourselves in music-making and praise). Sometimes we saw curiosity, joy or even healing on people’s faces. It came in swells, both for us and in their response. Sometimes they walked with their backs to us, continuing their quiet murmur of background conversation as they surveyed the 9/11 displays and the story of workers and a city who turned the terrorist attack into a sign of mutual support and courage. Then a piece of sacred song, something hearty or haunting, maybe some improvised bluesy jazz on a text from the Bible, or even our laughter at a shared discovery, something drew their attention and they were with us in church – both the community of people and the place of worship. So it went all day, hundreds of people an hour and flashes of grace and glory as our little group joined our Public Work to Trinity’s.

In the evening I thought of how strangely intimate and public the days were. Trying to describe our experience on the phone to my wife, I said it felt like street preaching on Times Square, or maybe like participating in a life drawing class with a nude model in the main rotunda of the Metropolitan Museum. We were aiming for truthfulness and Gospel, but we were unequivocally doing intimate, heart work, speaking and singing our faith, in a very public place. The work itself guided us from our fear and self-consciousness.

Even two full days of our workshop didn’t prepare me for the joyful wonder of 10 a.m. liturgy in this place of pilgrimage. I sat in the third or fourth row of the oval seats so I could both join in and watch the congregation and the pilgrims on the perimeter. The busses don’t stop just because it’s Sunday, and as a worshipper and part of a larger, more diffuse group, I felt the strangeness (and joy) of it very strongly. We were a hundred or so people, a solid, diverse congregation, and we were together in faith, in prayer as publicly as if we’d made our circle in Grand Central Station.

Marilyn Haskel, the musician, offered us welcome, guided us through the service leaflet, got us singing with piano and a capella and encouraged us. The Rev. Mark Bozzuti-Jones, a Jamaican Anglican priest new to Trinity’s staff presided and preached his first liturgy at St. Paul’s. His sermon and the way he engaged us all was breath taking, bold and comforting, confrontive and sweet. And even as he drew our hearts into the center of the circle to hold one another in our reflection on scripture, he might generously, and without the least notice, lob a word or prayers over our heads to the sea of pilgrims.

The liturgy was an even stronger magnet than the music workshop. Strangers slipped into the circle to join us. Many stopped to listen and pray and seemed to wish they could linger longer. A few seemed perplexed to hear a Gospel of such forgiveness, inclusion and challenge. Many blessed themselves with a touch of water from the front.

I wish everyone thinking about inclusion and welcome in our church could spend a Sunday with St. Paul’s, Manhattan. Having experienced it as a blessed and unequivocal Public Work, I don’t think our liturgy will ever look the same to me again.

Public work, as it turns out, may be a better translation of ‘liturgy’ than the ‘public work’ I learned in seminary in the 1960’s. In the 1960’s and 70’s our church was beginning to make our liturgy shared, collaborative work in new ways. ‘The work of the people’ was a useful etymology. It turned our attention to from the priest’s performance to what WE were making together.

Now friends who teach liturgics and history have been telling us that leitourgia (‘liturgy’) in the first century Mediterranean world was ‘public work,’ more like we think of with a DPT, Department of Public Works making or fixing a road or a bridge. In fact in the ancient world public work often referred to the generous works of public-minded rich people, like the medieval queen of Spain who built a bridge at Puente la Reyna for the pilgrims walking to Santiago or like Andrew Carnegie building libraries across America.

Today in 2007, we’ve found enough shared authority in liturgy-making to begin recovering this other, earlier sense of liturgy as work for or on behalf of the people. What we have to offer is holy, vibrant, and flexible enough that it can truly be public work. At St. Paul’s the ‘public work’ made very good sense. For me every question we can frame about welcoming strangers to liturgy will look different to me after three days of singing and praying at St. Paul’s Chapel.

The Rev. Donald Schell is founder St. Gregory's Episcopal Church, San Francisco and consultant and creative director of All Saints Company, San Francisco.

By Marshall Scott

When I was young, my father's profession took him at times overseas. He would attend meetings and discuss problems and solutions with folks from far away - such exotic places as England and Belgium and Germany (well, to a young boy they seemed distant and exotic enough). It gave him an interesting perspective on cultural differences.

Once, after a trip to the UK, he spoke of a meeting he had been to, and how it seemed different than those he commonly attended. The resolution of the discussion was a compromise; but my father found it interesting. He told me that in England, unlike America, a compromise was basically a good thing. True, no one got all he wanted; but everyone got something. In America his experience was that, no one having gotten all he wanted, everyone saw the compromise as loss. No one got everything, and so there was nothing one could celebrate.

The Oxford English Dictionary has several different denotations for "compromise." Two (in the Compact Edition of 1971) sound similar, but have some subtle differences.

4. Coming to terms, or arrangement of a dispute, by concession on both sides; partial surrender of one's position for the sake of coming to terms; the concession or terms offered by either side. 5. Adjustment for practical purposes of rival courses of action, systems or theories, conflicting opinions or principles, by the sacrifice or surrender of a part of each.

These sound a lot alike, don't they? And yet they are different.

They are different specifically in intent. The first definition is about coming to terms, with some concession from both sides. The second is about making pragmatic sacrifices to a rival. The first is about meeting of minds and mutual efforts. The second is about suspending conflict and grudging truce. The first is about comprehensiveness, and even communion. The second is about that other connotation of compromise: polluted, infected, stained, and shamed.

Now, I can't say now that the difference my father saw still obtains. Perhaps it was the setting or the topic or the times that made the difference. My own observation is that there seem to be quite enough competitive, convicted folks in the UK as to make "compromise" as distasteful to folks there as to folks here in the U. S. In any case, it seems to have been the first sense of compromise that moved the Episcopal House of Bishops; and the latter that moved the loudest voices on either side of the issues involved.

It is a hard time that way. I have heard again and again Revelation 3:15-16: "15 I know your works; you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were either cold or hot. 16 Because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth." It is from the challenge to the Church in Laodicea, a church apparently comfortable in the pews. But the call to be either hot or cold is apparently about the faith as a whole, and not a single issue. And while those who quote it most frequently want to portray their interest as "19 I reprove and discipline those whom I love. Be earnest, therefore, and repent. 20 Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me," the tone and context seems more indicative of "21 To the one who conquers I will give a place with me on my throne, just as I myself conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne." Separated, verses 19-20 are about, I think, the first sense of "compromise;" while verse 21 is about the second sense. (Indeed, I have come to feel that for some the secret favorite passage is no longer from Revelation 3:14-22, but from Psalm 83.)

And that is the problem with this quotation, and with the second sense of "compromise:" it begins with separation and seeks to institutionalize it, to reify it. It is much like our current cultural and political context, parodied well by Stephen Colbert in his character for The Colbert Report. It’s all about rage and passion, and thought and reflection only undermine strength of purpose.

But "being neither hot nor cold" need not be so stark. Readers may have noticed by now that I love to cook. One of the things I have to work at, still, is noting that some things do better with long, steady cooking at low heat. What comes to mind are onions. Many recipes start with onions that need to be "sweated" - cooked slowly over low heat to bring out the sugar in them, so long hidden by the sharpness of sulfur. Rush to cook them quickly and you either undercook them or burn them; and everything you add to them will take on the flavor of the sulfur that remains or the charred sugar that has been added. It's worth noting that this is also known as "clarifying" the onions; for as the sulfur fades away the onions go from opaque white to translucency, almost transparency. It's not that the onions aren't hot. It's that the slower, more patient process has brought out in them beauty and flavor that you wouldn't know from the raw form, and that no other, faster process would have produced.

We know this well in human experience and in the Christian faith, even if it sometimes gets short shrift. It is, after all, how we come as persons to wisdom, and how we distinguish wisdom from knowledge. It is as William James described in writing of those "once born": a gradual growth in the knowledge and love of the Lord not dependent on one or a few moments of conversion (even though those moments do come). It is what we mean in the Catholic west by "sanctification," what our Orthodox Christian siblings mean by "theosis:" the gradual growth in grace and in awareness of God's presence and God's action that is the result of the Spirit's continuing work in us.

It is, I think, an aspect of Paul's statement that "God is working in all things for good for those who love him:" in all things, and not just in those that move us in passion. It was lived out in the life of Peter, whose passions drove him while Jesus lived. His anger rejected Jesus' prediction of the crucifixion. His rage cut off the ear of the High Priest's servant. His fear denied Jesus three times before the cock crowed. It was in quiet and reflection that he understood his mission to tend and feed Christ's sheep, and that he realized that God could proclaim acceptable what his children had long rejected. And yet we would not suggest that either Paul or Peter was 'lukewarm' about faith in Christ.

So, perhaps all of us who are determined, committed, "hot" in our faith in Christ need to reflect again on what we mean by "compromise." Shall we see one another as colleagues to whom we might in good faith concede; or as rivals to whom any concession constitutes surrender? It's an important question for the Episcopal Church and for the Anglican Communion, and for each of us as individuals. Will we be moved by hasty passion, or trust in the slower, arguably harder and less comfortable process by which the Spirit seeks to bring us into all truth? How will we answer the question? The direction of the Church, and perhaps of our souls, depends on the answer.

The Rev. Marshall Scott is a chaplain in the Saint Luke’s Health System, a ministry of the Diocese of West Missouri. A past president of the Assembly of Episcopal Healthcare Chaplains, and an associate of the Order of the Holy Cross, he keeps the blog Episcopal Chaplain at the Bedside.

First of two parts.

The author gratefully acknowledges the input of other participants in Northern Virginia's Mesh Community for ideas she developed in this essay. It doesn't necessarily reflect any individual's opinion other than her own, however.

By Helen Thompson

I was talking to a friend about the challenges we face by virtue of being born after 1970--well, of being gen-xers in general, and being caught between the "Boomers" and the "Millennials," and how this affects us in faith communities. It came up last week on an email group, and I passed it along to several of my friends who are doing their part, in my humble opinion, to attract people like me to the broader church. On Sept. 20, that group met over margaritas to discuss, as my friend put it, "the theological / ecclesiological / missiological / tequiliological implications" of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows; indeed, the Harry Potter series as a whole. Where on earth can you find something like this? In our homespun small group, called MESH, which is an acronym for mix, entangle, share, harmonize. What it is, for me, is church. Three friends had the idea to read some books and invite their friends over for munchies and chat. And they're telling their friends. And they're telling their friends. We're not part of any one church, but part of the church.

The more I see things with top-down architectures being applied to us youngish people, the more I realize it doesn't work. I've seen great ideas committee-ed to death all because people older and wiser than me must control every outcome of every plan of every initiative. And the more input I got from friends of mine, the more I realized:

Your invitation to me to participate doesn't mean much if you don't let my input—and leadership—count. And that's what I'm hearing from frustrated 30-something laity who want to take on leadership positions but still get flak for being slackers, which we really are not anymore and we'd like some credit. It's not just the Episcopal Church. I worked at a financial services magazine that refused every pitch I made about Gen-X prospects because we're not buyers. I work for an association that's trying to figure out how to attract people under 40 because we're not joiners. One friend of mine added to the conversation that she'd like to see "'young adult' stricken from the Episcopal vocabulary"--for reasons that resonate with me: mortgage, career, family. Heck, my son is almost 15, and pretty soon I'll be the young adult parent of a young adult.

So, if we're not young adults anymore, and nowhere near middle aged (if 50 is new the 30, we're actually teenagers), what are we? How do you address the wide demographic of a narrow slice of the population that's holding an awful lot of cards and generating absolutely no buzz? Sure, skip us. Move on to the millennials.

Here's my take on things, though. Generation X is the bridge between the Boomers and the Millenials. We were raised with enough technology that we're conversant in the ways that today's teenagers interact on social networks. But we also know how to dial a phone. We're all wired in varying ways, but each succeeding generation is increasingly plugged in. Let me put it another way. Historically, many immigrants have come to America speaking only their native language. Their children, however, speak both languages fluently. But I know many cases where the grandchildren don't speak anything but English, and the middle generation must help the bookending generations understand one another--literally. So what happens if you skip the middle generation?

Here's an example I ran across recently. Blogs are a publishing platform that were adopted quickly by compulsive writers with varying degrees of web-savvy. I've had so many that it's a wonder I can populate them all with random Helen/Gallycat brain noise on a regular basis, so I wax and wane with all of them. They're a great way to distribute content, to self-publish (no, really, I'm more prolific than Stephen King!), to bypass censorious editors, to think aloud, to take the podium, to brainstorm in community. So of course, many organizations, seeing the value of being able to share content with one another, decided to barrel full speed ahead with a blog. Occasionally, some would enlist me to help get the blog off the ground, since I know the technology. One, in particular, was a church that was looking forward to getting some ideas out there.

But they didn't listen to my input on certain key issues that ultimately doomed the blog. Granted, this is a church that has huge outreach on many fronts and I don't fault them at all for determining that this wasn't the vehicle for them, especially since I was constantly moving from place to place and too peripatetic to fully participate in the community. (This is a major reason why "online" was my permanent residence, up til recently.) But the problem was that every post had to be approved by a committee. I felt like Cassandra, trying to explain to them why it would inhibit participation on the blog. It died a few months later. I was sad, but Episcopal Cafe emerged right around then, so I had another place to focus my energies.

So how is this an example of why we, Gen X, are the translators? We are well equipped to understand social media, which is going to be the communications medium of choice for today's young people. How is this changing the face of communications? My connections in the news media say it's as revolutionary as Gutenberg and the moveable type printing press. Ignore this opinion at your peril, unless you think Luther's revolution had nothing to do with Gutenberg's (again, a hat tip to my friend for saying this; I hope he outs himself in the comments). Blogs are just a part of what that next generation is coming online with. We can speak their language. We can speak the Boomers', too, though. Did I mention my teenage son? Yes? What about my aging parents? How's your retirement portfolio?

So anyway, back to the matter at hand. Don't skip Generation X. We've seen it more than once. We've heard you ask how to reach us, and seen you form committees hoping to find the magic pill that will get us back in the pews. To be honest, you might not. My fiancé has stalwartly avoided church services pretty much since he was old enough to say "no" to them. But cookouts, labyrinth walks, drum circles, soup kitchens, river clean-ups? He's so there. How is he going to hear about those activities if he doesn't come to church each Sunday? Through our blogs, our Facebook accounts, our Livejournals, our Myspace pages. I'm on each of these platforms, and on every single one it's plain to see that I'm a Christian, an Episcopalian, a Harry Potter fan and a Diet Pepsi addict. And I have slowly been building my own net community, little pockets of which occasionally gather for margaritas, that is my church.

You don't need a committee to study us and come up with a strategic plan that you'll implement just in time for my grandchildren's confirmation, by which time said strategic plan will be as obsolete and full of cheesy music as 8-track tapes. Try flying by the seat of your pants. Take a hint from my Tequila-loving pals and get a group together over dinner and a movie and see what happens. Take some popular music—U2 is just the beginning—and see what happens when you treat the lyrics as songs to God. Look at how subcultures like emo and goth have spiritual subtexts that tie in beautifully with the poetry of psalms. Take church outside the church, and take advantage of social networking technology to bring more people into the fold. Not the pews, THE FOLD. For we are his flock in the world. In the world! Such is the call to the diaconate, and the call of the deacon at the end of the service. But it's important to everyone; otherwise, such would not be the call of the deacon to us: Go forth into the world to love and serve the lord.

It's not enough to study us. Listen to us, yes, but more importantly—

Join us.

Helen Thompson directs social media initiatives for an international association in Northern Virginia and is a freelance writer and editor. She lives in the northern Shenandoah Valley, where she is in her second year of studies in Education for Ministry and plugging away at her first novel. Catch her on the web at http://www.gallycat.com, among others.

By Steven Charleston

By now most of us will have read all about what the Episcopal bishops said (or didn’t say) at the House of Bishops meeting in New Orleans. As usual in political controversies some of us will be happy while others are disturbed. But what ever your reaction to New Orleans might be, there is one common denominator that I believe unites all sides of the argument: for better or worse, the church is reinventing itself. We may not like it. We may not admit it. But that is what is happening.

I know it is not popular to say that we actually invent the church each generation. Many people like to think that there is a rock solid core of tradition that never changes. But even the most core beliefs of any religious community are continually transformed by the interpretation, the nuances, each generation brings to their understanding of those beliefs. Did people in medieval Europe believe Jesus was the Son of God? Yes. Do Christians in Iowa today believe the same thing? Yes, but beyond that the cultural values and historic realities of these two communities make that single belief a prism, not a rock. We are not building on the firm foundation. We are building on the ever shifting sands of culture.

What is happening in the church now, whether from the Left or the Right, is the reinterpretation of the culture we call church. The forces of change are played out in the kind of negotiation process we have been witnessing for several years around subjects like human sexuality and church governance. The actions taken in New Orleans are only a small piece in a continuing process. In effect, we are negotiating our future, shaping the community to fit the assumptions we hold about the values we cherish arising from the beliefs we have interpreted from the past. Therefore, New Orleans is not the last word, but only more words in the chain of change that will make the Episcopal Church a radically different community within the next decade.

Should we be made anxious by this process? Yes and no.

Yes, if we abrogate our role in the negotiations. We should be anxious if others are doing all the talking, making all the choices, or defining all the terms.

No, if we are fully engaged in designing our own future. We should not be anxious if we are actively listening, learning and negotiating no matter how difficult or frustrating that effort may seem.

While the decisions made in New Orleans will reassure some, comfort many, and upset a few, they are only the visible brush strokes of a much deeper creative process. Other challenges and other compromises will be reached in the days to come. All of them will be the outward signs of an inner cultural shift. Like the tectonic plates of the Earth, the interpretations we give to long held beliefs will move us to a new place whether we are ready to go or not. Change will happen and the process will recycle itself within the next generation.

Does that make what we do meaningless in the politics of the moment? Not really, not if you believe that beneath it all, behind it all, God is working out a future in negotiation with us. Our rock solid tradition is to believe that God is a God of history. Our common sense historical experience teaches us that this history is as pliable as necessity and as resilient as fear.

The Rt. Rev. Steven Charleston, former Bishop of Alaska, is president and dean of Episcopal Divinity School, and keeper of the podcasting blog EDS's Stepping Stones. A citizen of the Choctaw Nation, Bishop Charleston is widely recognized as a leading proponent for justice issues and for spiritual renewal in the church.

By Christine Gutleben and Lois Wye

Climate change is receiving increasing attention among faith communities, especially The Episcopal Church. As people of faith, we are becoming more aware of our roles as stewards of creation, while developing sensitivities to our consumption habits and our carbon footprints. The Episcopal Church has also put the U.N.’s Millennium Develop Goals on the front burner, recognizing the religious communities’ critical role in reducing world hunger and improving the lives of our brothers and sisters around the globe.

Our Presiding Bishop, Rev. Dr. Katharine Jefferts Schori, has recognized that climate change and world hunger are inexorably intertwined. Testifying before Congress in June of this year, she said, “We cannot triumph over global poverty . . . unless we also address climate change, as the two phenomena are intimately related. Climate change exacerbates global poverty, and global poverty propels climate change.” Bishop Jefferts Schori’s testimony is significant; however, a third critical element is missing from the discussion. Unless we take an honest look at industrial animal agriculture and the food choices that support this system, our progress in mitigating world hunger and climate change will be significantly hampered.

Nearly one fifth of all greenhouse gas emissions come from livestock agriculture – more than the contribution of all transportation systems combined, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) report, Livestock’s Long Shadow. Moreover, the report states that thousands of acres rainforest are cleared to make way for farming—to raise grain not for people or pastured animals, but for feedlots. In many parts of the world, small farmers are forced out of business and into poverty when they are unable to compete with large industrial farming practices. In short, if we want to have the strongest impact on combating both climate change and world hunger, we must do more than turn off the light switch or trade in our SUVs for hybrids; we must change the way we shop and the way we eat.

The problem is one of increasing urgency. The contribution of factory farming to environmental problems, world hunger, and untold animal suffering is rising rapidly. In 1961, the average American consumed 195 pounds of meat per year, by 2001 this figure rose to 272 pounds per year—a 77 pound increase in the last 40 years, according to the FAO. This illustrates that the continual growth of industrial animal agriculture in the United States is not simply a result of having to feed more people, it is also a result of Americans eating more meat. And the problem doesn’t stop there. As our western, meat-based diet is exported around the globe, per person meat consumption is exploding in countries like China and Brazil. The average person in China is consuming an increase of 110 pounds of meat per year, up from 40 years ago; similarly, in Brazil, the average person is now consuming an increase of 113 pounds of meat per year. At this rate, in just 20 years, we will need to produce 5 times more meat than we are currently producing globally, according to the FAO.

Factory Farming and Climate Change

The industrial livestock industry is responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, as measured in carbon dioxide equivalent. This accounts for animal agriculture’s direct impact as well as the impact of the resources required for feedcrop agriculture. Methane, nitrous oxide and ammonia emissions, all of which have a more significant global warming potential than carbon dioxide, are also produced in high quantities on factory farms. The U.S. produces the largest portion of methane emissions from farm animal manure in the world, totaling nearly 1.9 million tons annually.

A 2005 report from the University of Chicago entitled Diet, Energy and Global Warming concluded that the average American diet, which includes meat, dairy and eggs produces 1.5 metric tons of carbon dioxide more per person per year than a plant-based diet yielding the same calories. The study notes that producing a calorie of meat protein means burning more than ten times as much fossil fuels and ten times as much carbon dioxide than a calorie of plant protein. The emissions difference between an omnivorous diet and a plant-based diet is roughly the difference between driving an SUV and a compact car. Indeed, however much energy we save through switching light bulbs or driving hybrid cars, we will sooner or later have to address our diet and reduce our consumption of factory farmed animal products if we are serious about mitigating the effects of climate change.

Factory Farms and World Hunger

Compassion in World Farming (CIWF), a non-governmental organization headquartered in the United Kingdom, has produced an excellent, 17 minute video entitled, “Eat Less Meat.” This video illustrates the impact of a meat-based diet and factory farming on human health, the environment, world hunger, and animal welfare. According to CIWF, the growing global popularity of meat as a dietary staple and the increasing middle class in many countries has encouraged intensive industrial farming methods in developing countries. This is usually undertaken as a joint venture with western companies, and meat is produced both for export and the local middle class. Local small scale farmers cannot compete and lose their farms. They tend to drift into cities and move from being self-sufficient farmers to landless urban poor.

Moreover, the rise of factory farms worldwide encourages the development of monocultures, wherein farmers are encouraged to grow a single crop solely to be exported for animal feed. Thus, local economies become less diversified and more fragile, affordable food is removed from local economies, and land which could be used to raise food for people is instead used to raise food for animals.

According to the World Health Organization, a hectare of land used to raise crops for livestock can feed only two people, while a hectare of land used to grow rice or potatoes for people can feed approximately 20 people. If everyone in the world were to eat as much meat as the average American, by mid-century it would require four planets the size of earth to grow the grain to feed the animals. Conversely, according to the International Food Policy Institute, if people in the west halved their consumption of meat, and the land used to feed those animals was used to grow crops for people, 3.6 million children in developing countries could be saved from malnutrition by the year 2020.

Factory Farms and Animal Welfare

After World War II, the process of raising animals became largely transformed into one of producing high quantities of meat as cheaply as possible, at the inevitable expense of animal welfare. Animals have been moved from pastures to feedlots and warehouses. Some of the worst abuses of factory farms include battery cages for egg-laying hens, where hens are crammed row upon row into cages so small they cannot spread their wings, and gestation crates, where 400 pound hogs are kept in cages so small they cannot turn around. Most factory farmed animals spend their entire lives without feeling the earth beneath their feet or the sun on their backs.

In the United States alone, ten billion animals will be killed this year for our consumption. Most of these animals will spend their lives inside factory farms. These are God’s creatures, entrusted to our care. They live their lives and go to their deaths without one gentle touch, one act of mercy, from human hands.

We live in a culture where few of us have any idea how food gets to our table. There are rumblings of change within the faith community. In May of this year, Barbara Kingsolver spoke at the National Cathedral about her book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, regarding the importance of eating mindfully. In August, The New York Times published, “Of Church and Steak: Farming for the Soul,” which addresses the need recognized by some in the faith community to treat farm animals more humanely and to practice more sustainable methods of agriculture. These rumblings need to become a roar.

Where do we go from here

Farmer, author and teacher, Wendell Berry, offers this critique of the way we purchase food products without concern for origin. Berry explains that our food choices are critical not only for our own spiritual integrity, but for the health and well being of the earth and all its inhabitants:

We can [not] live harmlessly or strictly at our own expense; we depend upon other creatures and survive by their deaths. To live, we must daily break the body and shed the blood of creation. The point is, when we do this knowingly, lovingly, skillfully, reverently, it is a sacrament; when we do it ignorantly, greedily, clumsily, destructively, it is a desecration…in such desecration, we condemn ourselves to spiritual and moral loneliness, and others to want.

Deliberate, selective, intentional and compassionate food choices that align with our spiritual principles are, in part, what makes food a sacrament – a material reality that conveys the divine. We have the choice to experience the sacramentality of creation or its destruction when we purchase, prepare and eat our food. Berry also reminds us that we are not the center of God’s universe. We exist as dependent creatures within diverse and intricate ecosystems and should consider food choices with this in mind.

It is time our food choices enter into the “carbon footprint” equation. These choices have a far greater impact than has been accounted for thus far and it is time our religious communities consider the ethics of eating as part of any serious work on climate change and the fight against world hunger. As The New York Times noted in its recent article, “If this nascent cause [were to be] taken up by large numbers of churches and synagogues, the economic effect alone could be profound.”

In 2003, the Episcopal Church took the first steps in recognizing this need with GC Resolution D016. “Support Ethical Care of Animals,” condemns the suffering caused by factory farms and calls upon the church to encourage its members to adhere to ethical standards in the treatment of animals and to advocate for legislation protecting them. Farms with stricter animal welfare standards benefit animals, humans, and the environment.

The Humane Society of the United States’ (HSUS) Animals and Religion program is reaching out to congregations and religiously affiliated organizations to join with it to work in partnership for a more just, sustainable and humane food system. The collaboration between HSUS and the religious community could form a powerful coalition to return industrial agriculture to a more appropriate scale and address the problems inherent in the factory farming system. The HSUS commends The Episcopal Church’s resolution on animals and suggests reducing the consumption of animal products, refining the selection of these products to more humane alternatives and replacing them with sustainably produced fruits, vegetables, grains and legume as important steps in enacting the resolution, reducing one’s carbon footprint, combating world hunger and being better stewards of both the earth and all its inhabitants.

Christine Gutleben is Director of the Animals and Religion Program at the Humane Society of the United States. Lois Godfrey Wye is an environmental attorney at the law firm of Holland & Knight, a student at Wesley Theological Seminary, and a parishioner at the Washington National Cathedral.

Links referred to in this article:
Livestock's Long Shadow Executive Summary (FAO)
Diet Energy and Global Warming (University of Chicago)
Eat Less Meat Video (CIWF)
Factory Farms
Battery Cages for egg laying hens
Gestation Crates
Of Church and Steak: Farming for the Soul (NYT)
Support Ethical Care of Animals (TEC)
The 3 R's

By Micah Jackson

Picture in your mind a stereotypical pastor. Regardless of denomination, gender, or age, the pastor you’re picturing is probably at least a little bit overweight. It makes sense, really. Pastors are, by and large, holding jobs with irregular hours that take place mostly in offices or homes. They drive cars from one place to another. Most hosts will feel like they should offer the pastor a slice of coffee cake, at least, if not a full meal with dessert! No wonder the pastor in your mind is somewhat pudgy.

But this is not just a fantasy situation for many pastors. A recent survey by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America found that 72% of pastors are suffering from poor nutrition, 62% are experiencing health threatening stress or depression, 60% have hypertension. Studies done by other denominations show similar results. Pulpit and Pew, in a cross-denominational survey of more than 2,500 Christian clergy, found that more than three-quarters of pastors are heavier than they should be—much higher than the general population, which itself is alarmingly overweight.

Christian history is filled with varying theologies of the body. Some say that the body, as part of this material world, is inherently evil and a prison for the soul. Some would suggest, to the contrary, that the Incarnation shows the body as part of God’s inherently good creation, and therefore to be cared for as the rest of creation. St. Paul famously wrote, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God?” (1 Cor 6:19) No wonder most clergy have decided not to think about it.

The temptation is to respond to such a crisis the way Americans often do, by throwing money at the problem, through programs, or pills. A whole industry has arisen around weight-loss, and it includes a wide range of people, from surgeons in the wealthiest neighborhoods in the country to people who stoop down to pick herbs from the ground that others hope will melt away fat or block carbohydrate absorption, or some such. King Solomon advised “put a knife to your throat if you have a big appetite.” (Proverbs 23:2) Probably he didn’t imagine literally “going under the knife” for weight-loss surgery, but perhaps only because it had never occurred to him.

The crude measures of body mass, like gross weight, or the BMI, may be good estimates of fitness in the minds of insurance companies. Still, true “fitness” can only be measured in comparison to a concrete task. “Fitness for what?” must be the question. And for that, as always, we must listen for the voice of God. To what work is God calling you, and is your body up to the challenge? If you were more physically fit, could you do more for the Kingdom?

In her book Honoring the Body: Meditations on a Christian Practice, Stephanie Paulsell tells the story of a “father of a disabled child who runs each day and lifts weights several times a week so that even when he has grown old, he will be able to lift his daughter from her wheelchair, carry her to the car, settle her into the bath.” This man does not seek trophies, medals, or even a souvenir t-shirt. But surely he is “fit for the Kingdom of God.” So are those who are called to weed the garden in the park, or walk the neighborhood in a community policing initiative, or swing a hammer on a Habit for Humanity house. They, too, honor God, and serve their fellow humans, with their physical bodies.

This is not to say that those who choose to run marathons or lift heavy barbells cannot do so in such a way as to bring glory to God. Indeed, many do. I myself have been training for a marathon as a way of getting more fit for whatever God may call me to do. Feel free to follow along, or read more of my thoughts on fitness, on my website, ironpriest.org.

I’ve found that training for the marathon to get more fit has helped me in many ways. Sure, I’ve lost about 20 pounds, my pulse rate and blood pressure are down, and I look and feel much better. But, I’ve also learned that many of the things I used to think of as insignificant matter very much to God. The food I eat, the choices I make about what to say yes to, about time management, about goal setting, about pacing, each of these things has helped to bring me more in touch with my body, fearfully and wonderfully made, one of my first gifts from God.

Clergy have important jobs, and many of us are unfit to the task, or will become so long before we should, because of our poor attention to health. We owe ourselves, our fellow-workers, our parishioners, our God, more than that. We love God with not only our heart, and soul, and mind, but also with our strength.

The Rev. Micah Jackson is a priest of the Diocese of Chicago, currently living in Berkeley, Calif. He is a doctoral student in Homiletics at the Graduate Theological Union. His personal blog is St. Jerome's Library.

By Nick Knisely

In recent days there has been plenty of commentary both here and other places about the statement from the House of Bishops’ meeting in New Orleans and what it means for us as Episcopalians and Anglicans. The points made in those places are probably already familiar to the people reading this essay and I don’t see it as being helpful to list them here. (Take a look at the Lead if you’re need a refresher.) What I want to do here is to invite folks to look at what has happened in New Orleans in a different way through a different lens.

In the days leading up to the meeting I came across a reply to a comment on someone’s blog. The original post mentioned that “Rowan Williams was willing to sacrifice biblical truth for the sake of maintaining unity.” A few comments later someone replied to the effect that she “was right that Rowan might sacrifice to maintain unity, but that she misunderstood the reason why. Rowan was willing to compromise because he understands maintaining unity as biblical truth”.

That comment has been stuck in my brain ever since. It gives me a way to express something I’ve been struggling to put into words for years. I am a catholic Christian in a way similar to my reading of where Rowan Williams is coming from. I believe the Body of Christ looks like the wide diversity of human experience - intentionally and not by accident. This is not a belief I brought with me into the Episcopal Church, but it is one that I have grown into as I have prayed the liturgy and read the bible with the people I have met in this denomination.

It is because I am a “catholic minded” Christian that I have never been able to find any internal resonance for myself with the idea that “we” or “they” must now walk apart from each other.

I am for Jesus like, I believe, just about every other voice in this moment. For me that leads me to confess that I am for the greatest amount of communion with the largest diversity possible.

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Having thus laid out my own prejudices, let me now offer up my differing take on the House of Bishops’ statement.

The statement from the HoB is a political document extracted from them via threats and coercion. To read it as theological statement or a self-consistent teaching document is to misunderstand its purpose and genesis. It does not grow out of spontaneous desire of the Episcopal Church to toss yet another hot-potato into the conversation. It was not something that the House of Bishops looked forward to creating. It is the response to the request from the voices of the Primates Council of the Anglican Communion.

Given that it is not meant to be a confessional statement of belief or a teaching from the house, then what hope can it bring to us in the Episcopal Church?

The HoB statement is more important for the consensus it represents than it is for what it actually says.

For years now we’ve witnessed raucous House of Bishops’ meetings with boycotts, minority reports, people refusing to worship with one another and political horse-trading. What we’ve not seen is our bishops resolutely coming together into a community, listening to each other and working to create a document that they could all support to one degree or another. We have that here and it is the most surprising thing about the flawed and internally inconsistent document.

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I have been struggling for sometime now trying to understand the complaints we hear across the breadth of the Anglican Communion that the problems in its internal life are due to American imperialism and lack of concern for others. It’s a charge that hasn’t seemed fair to me given that the Episcopal Church has only ever tried to order its own life and spoken of its own practice for the most part. But while watching the goings on in New Orleans and listening to the overseas voices, I recognized something I hadn’t before. People who feel disenfranchised in the Episcopal Church and Episcopalians who feel disenfranchised in the Anglican Communion have been busy and effective of late reaching out and making allies for themselves outside of the Episcopal Church.

There’s nothing wrong with reaching out like this, and in most cases it seems commendable to me. But the unintended consequence of this looking for allies is that we here in the Episcopal Church have effectively turned our local squabbles into international ones. And our exported squabbles now not only threaten the health of our province but the internal lives of other provinces as well. It’s not that they don’t have to face the same issues, it’s that our culture’s framing of the issues is, in an unintended way, causing the issues to framed in their different culture in our terms rather than allowing them the opportunity to frame them for themselves.

To put it baldly: The lack of spiritual health in the life of the “instruments of unity” in the Episcopal Church is spreading to the “instruments of unity” in the rest of the Communion.

If the consensus statement from the House of Bishops represents the first steps on the long journey back to a mature and christian response to conflict in our province, then perhaps an important milestone in our recovery has been passed.

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What do I as a “catholic-minded” Christian think a mature response to conflict looks like? For me the first and primary response to brokeness is not to walk apart from each other - it is rather to kneel together at the Lord's table.

I take both St. Augustine's theological anthropology and Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem seriously enough that I fundamentally doubt that we can either reason our way or interpret scripture accurately enough to find out way out of our present mess.

It is only by coming together to Christ and being fed from his self-emptying and freely gifted sacrifice that we can be healed.

So given that, our most effective response to the present conflict is to freely and honestly admit our brokeness and that we are stuck in a place we don’t know how to get out of. We are in an acute situation, and the first thing to do in an acute situation is to not take an action which would make things worse. Rather than cutting deeper to try heal a serious wound, might we instead first try to staunch the bleeding? I would argue that pastoral care for both sides, not schism or temporary separation, is what is called for in this moment in our Church.

Do I have specific suggestions about what that pastoral care would like like? Well, yes, I do actually... But I don’t think my suggestions are going to be terribly helpful because I’m not a member of one of the groups asking for care.

I believe the most Christian path would be for us to listen to both the communities of LBGT christians and those on the other side of the present debate who feel disenfranchised and marginalized by the actions of General Convention about what they respectively feel would be helpful. They have not been quiet in asking for specific things. And then to be honest and frank about what we can do and what we can’t do - recognizing our sinfulness and our brokeness as the source of our limitations.

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I do not know the definitive way that would lead us out of our present stuck situation. I'm leery of people who claim they do. (If there's a true prophet amongst us, please tell me the sign by which I recognize her or him.)

What I do believe is that the answer will only come to us as we commit ourselves more and more strongly to becoming the Body of Christ in the world. The closer we come to Jesus, the closer we come to each other. The closer we come to each other, the greater the agape love we share and the less insurmountable the problems we face.

The House of Bishops’ appears to me to have taken a turn down this new road. And for that reason more than any other, I am more hopeful now than I was last week.

The Very Rev. W. Nicholas Knisely is Dean of Trinity Cathedral in Phoenix Ariz. He serves as Chair of the Standing Commission on Episcopal Church Communication, is active in ecumenical works and was originally trained as an astronomer before he was ordained. His blog is Entangled States.

By Susan Fawcett

Since all kinds of uninformed reporters in the secular media have been adding their opinions to the mix, I thought I'd throw mine in there, which may be worth all the money you've just paid to get to see it, and may be just as objective as your hometown newspaper.

Here's a short, slanted, and totally oversimplified summary of what the House of Bishops' response to the Primates' Communique says (which, for the record, is nothing new at all):

Dear Primates:

First, we still love our gay and lesbian people. We agreed last summer not to consecrate them (though we're not making promises about anyone who might be single), or authorize any prayer book revisions for them, so that you would not write us off entirely. But only for a while. And yes, there are some of us who are doing everything we can short of those two promises to speak up with and for them. (If that troubles you, please see point The Fourth).

Second, we still love you and all of our Anglican Brothers and Sisters (though we're seriously peeved at a particular set of you who are using some seriously sketchy funding to put forward a massive smear campaign, take away buildings that were pledged to us, and give away a bunch of purple shirts to people who couldn't be duly elected to earn them). We love learning from you and with you. We want to follow Jesus right alongside you. We think we have a few things to contribute to you, too. Please don't stop speaking to us.

Third, even though we really do love you, we aren't going to let you push us around and change the rules of how the Anglican Communion works. No, you may not come into our house and tell us how to do things. That was never what we agreed to.

Fourth, since we agreed way back at Lambeth in 1998 that we should ALL be listening to the experiences of gay and lesbian people, and making sure they are treated with the dignity and respect that human beings tend to deserve, we've decided to make that 'Listening Process' a priority. So should you (since you said you would).

Fifth, we'd like to remind you that the Anglican Communion was never meant to be a legislative body. We're more like a family. You keep complaining that we're being 'colonialist,' and thrusting our ways upon everyone else. We think that (how do we say this pastorally? Sigh.) in this situation, perhaps that might be the pot calling the kettle black.

See you at Lambeth!

Love,
Bishops, Episcopal Church USA

And, again, totally oversimplified, here is my assessment of the Important Things that happened at the House of Bishops last week. Note that there is no mention of their response to the Communique in this list.

1. Our Bishops underlined for the Primates, for the umpteenth time, that they do not have the authority to make decisions for the Episcopal Church (that would be the job of General Convention, which is made up of lay people and clergy, who are elected to their positions at General Convention. We shan't go into how post-colonial this is compared to other
structures around the world, Thus, there's no sense in getting your knickers in a twist over what the House of Bishops writes to some Primates. If you're going to get upset about something, pick something that matters a little more.

2. The Archbishop of Canterbury joined them, and made some very interesting and refreshing remarks. For one, he suggested that members of disaffected parishes here in the US should look for signs of grace in the Episcopal Church (rather than creating some sort of other structure outside of it). The fact that he spoke candidly to the situation at all was a great gift. You can watch a video of his responses at a press conference here.

3. Our Bishops got out of their purple shirts and out of their offices and out of all the ridiculous yammering about politics, and did something to actually help people on the ground in New Orleans. Thank you.

The Rev. Susan Fawcett keeps the blog This Passage. She serves a parish the Diocese of Virginia, and supports the work of the General Convention publication The Center Aisle.

By Deirdre Good

Do not put your trust in rulers and in mortals in whom there is no salvation…Blessed is the one whose helper is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God, who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them; who guards truth forever, executing judgment for the wronged; giving food to the hungry (Ps 146: 3-7).

These words from Psalm 146 have been ringing in my ears ever since I read the Bishops' statement from New Orleans released earlier this week: "Put not your faith in princes! Trust and hope in God who alone redresses wrongs and who enacts justice!" Of course, the Bishops have done good work and to reach a degree of unanimity that responds to the Windsor Report while opening a way for full participation at Lambeth and commending a listening process is certainly pragmatic and noteworthy. But what good news does this statement proclaim to faithful glbt persons in the pews or at the altars of our churches every Sunday, in parishes here, in Britain, in Malawi, in Pakistan, and elsewhere in the Anglican Communion?

The Bishops declared: We proclaim the Gospel that in Christ there is no Jew or Greek, no male or female, no slave or free. This is a ringing declaration of justice (even if it misquotes Gal 3:28—the text says "male and female") but what does it actually mean in our dioceses or parishes? Does anyone believe gender discrimination doesn't exist on a local level? Just do a tally, for example, of the women and men rectors or clergy in your diocese and you will see what I mean. Or put yourself in place of a visitor to an Episcopal Church. No one can put a foot inside the door without being confronted by distinctions of all kinds from knowing your way around the books in the pews, to seeing whether people look like me and thus whether I'll be welcome. Are Bishops facilitating efforts to eradicate racism in their dioceses? Are dioceses discussing reparations for black Episcopalians?

Maybe the Bishops meant to interpret Gal 3:28 by one of the next declarations: We proclaim the Gospel that in Christ all God's children, including gay and lesbian persons, are full and equal participants in the life of Christ's Church. But is it the case in our parishes? Do I see glbt people like me represented at the altar, throughout the pews, on the vestry, in the diocese? Until I see something like fair representation in all these places (and others), statements like these have no teeth.

I have a job working for a church institution. But I know ordained glbt people who are not able to find employment in the church and whose God-given gifts the diocese in which they live is squandering. I know glbt lay persons who have been let go by their ecclesiastical employers. Where are the voices of bishops, deployment officers, priests and laypersons in our churches speaking out on their behalf or working quietly for justice and nondiscrimination?

So I say to the Bishops of our church: Let's work on implementing what you proclaim in your meeting by employing and promoting ordained and lay women and glbt people fairly and equally in your dioceses. To my gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered brothers and sisters I say: we always have the power of the purse to leave the church or to withhold our time and our talents to demand change. But if there is some hope that the statements from New Orleans hold out to us: that we have an ongoing and particular place at the table; that without all of us the body of Christ is fractured and broken; then let's take our witness –the angry patient tired but joyous witness of presence—as the church in the world to proclaim the incredible tireless love of God who guards truth forever and who always, always, always, executes justice for the oppressed.

Dr. Deirdre Good is professor of New Testament at The General Theological Seminary, specializing in the Synoptic Gospels, Christian Origins, Noncanonical writings and biblical languages. While she is an American citizen, she grew up in Kenya. Her blog is On Not Being a Sausage.

By Kit Carlson

Forces are at play in our world and in our church, and one of the best assessments I have heard lately of those forces came from a community reform expert. Peter Plastrik, co-author of Banishing Bureaucracy and The Reinventors’ Fieldbook, spoke recently at a training session for community leaders in East Lansing, Michigan. He outlined five forces, five “Gs”, that are affecting communities across America.

As he spoke, it struck me that these forces are the same ones affecting our church.

Plastrik’s “Five G’s” are:

Grand Rapids – as a metaphor for the global economy. The internet, easy international travel, and the ability to move jobs anywhere in the world have changed the economies of communities once based on manufacturing and local enterprises.

Goat meat – as a metaphor for immigration and all the challenges it brings. Consumption of goat meat in the U.S. has skyrocketed as immigrants from countries that eat goat arrive, bringing their national cuisines with them.

Greenland – as a metaphor for global warming. The ice on this large Arctic island is vanishing, and with climate change comes a host of new challenges for each community.

Gay people – as a metaphor for all the cultural challenges surrounding gender, age, and sexuality.

Geoffrey Canada – creator of the Harlem Children’s Zone, a community-based organization that seeks to serve 9,000 children, providing support from birth through college. Canada serves as a metaphor for self-empowered citizens, who don’t wait for government or other institutions to solve community problems.

A member of the audience added a sixth “G”, the Graying of America, as the long-promised demographic shift of the Baby Boom into old age begins at last.

Plastrik’s “G-forces” made a lot of sense to me. When people ask, “What is happening to our church?” they often think in terms of political movements -- liberals versus conservatives, progressives versus traditionalists. Instead, one might look at the power of these forces, playing out in the parishes and dioceses and provinces of The Episcopal Church and of the Anglican Communion.

G-1: The worldwide Anglican Communion was not so prominent 30 years ago. As the global economy has taken shape, a global Communion emerged in prominence and consideration along with it. And just as a global economy knows no borders, ecclesiastical relationships that cross borders and jurisdictions follow the same pattern of connections that criss-cross the planet and minimize the importance of local communities.

G-2: Rapid immigration into the United States brought Anglicans from around the world into American parishes. No longer is Anglican worship uniform across The Episcopal Church. Inculturation has come to us, and so we sing from many traditions, read scripture in other languages, practice Pentecost every day of the church year. The values and expectations of other cultures become part of our conversations about sex, worship, politics and a host of other issues.

G-3: The churches of the Gulf Coast still recovering from Katrina understand how climate change can affect our churches and communities. There is more to come, and Bishop Charles Jenkins of Louisiana has already seen it coming. His call for the church to focus on ministries of relief and development instead of on schism and division comes out of hard experience.

G-4: There is not much to say that hasn’t been said about the cultural challenges of inclusion and acceptance of GBLT people. Joan Chittister said it best perhaps … the Anglicans just got to the issue earlier than most.

G-5: Self-empowered citizens, entrepreneurial community activists … the church is full of them. Duncan, Iker, Minns and those who would develop an alternate structure are entrepreneurs in their way. Why wait for the agonizingly slow movement of the Communion and its provinces to address Windsor, gay bishops, a Covenant, or any other issue? Why not set up one’s own alternative diocese, alternative province, alternative Communion?

Finally, there is that sixth G-force, one that Plastrik dismissed as not of interest to him. But the Graying of America, the graying of the Episcopal Church, is a real force. As I look across the faces of my parish, I see a community that has failed to effectively share the gospel with the generations coming after it. There are faithful elders and faithful Boomers … most of whom have grown children who do not themselves attend church, who are not raising the grandchildren in any faith, and who have abandoned religion as irrelevant. The leading edge of the church is dying off, and it is not replenishing itself.

And so the question is probably not – what to do about gay bishops or authorized rites of blessing. The question is really: How will we navigate these powerful forces? In a global, migratory, entrepreneurial, aging, culturally conflicted, climactically threatened world … how are we going to be Church? How will we proclaim the good news of Christ in the face of forces beyond our control?

The Rev. Kit Carlson, is the rector of All Saints Episcopal Church in East Lansing, Mich. In 2003, she played the apostle Paul on the world's first internet reality series, The Ark, a project of the Christian humor website Ship of Fools.

By Roger Ferlo

It’s been a relatively quiet week here at the seminary in Alexandria, where manicured lawns and tree-lined streets place most of us a world and several social classes away from the ramshackle detritus of New Orleans’ 9th Ward. Nonetheless, we pay a lot of attention to New Orleans these days. Several of our seminarians come from that part of the country, and for two years now many of my students and colleagues have spent days and weeks at a time in that broken city trying to help in whatever way they can. So it was unsettling this week, even a little distasteful, to be asked to refocus our attention on the comings and goings of bishops gathered in New Orleans, rather than on New Orleans itself.

I thought I knew better. No good usually comes of this. In my long experience as a parish priest, there have been few occasions more dispiriting to me than these scheduled gathering of bishops. I say this not because I dislike bishops all that much. I admire a lot of them, count not a few as my friends, and most of the time feel rather sorry for them, isolated and misunderstood as they often are. But I find such occasions dispiriting because, in spite of everything I believe and teach about shared power and shared authority, I find myself buying the press’s line that the power and decision-making in the Episcopal Church in the United States are centered in the House of Bishops, and find myself hoping that whatever they decide this weekend down in New Orleans will set everything right.

And I am always proved wrong. There’s no reason to assume that these men and women will be up to such a task. It’s not their job. It’s a job all of us share. That fact underscores one of the ironies of Anglican history. In spite of our reputation in other parts of the Anglican Communion as a prime colonizer of heretical values and American power, the American church goes about its business in a distinctly post-colonial way. We long ago shed our allegiance to meddling foreign bishops. For two centuries our church has invested decision-making authority in a duly-elected bicameral legislature where both the ordained and the non-ordained have equal voice and equal standing. Meanwhile, many other bishops—particularly in post-colonial western and central Africa, and let it be said, in Great Britain as well, that ancient well-spring of colonizing fervor— have embraced hierarchical styles of leadership and authority that would have warmed the autocratic heart of George III. So also have many of their American admirers, particularly those bishops and wannabe bishops who were happy to participate in the quirkily democratic body we call the General Convention unless and until the votes didn’t go their way. To hear them talk, you would think that the Holy Spirit seems to be at work only when matters fall out in their favor. And now people who could not get themselves elected bishops by their own people in their own dioceses are finding ways to get themselves ordained as bishops under the aegis of foreign primates, self-righteously bent on saving me from myself, and re-colonizing a church that had assumed it had ended that kind of extra-territorial interference when Cornwallis surrendered to American troops in the first place.

So I guess it’s hard for me to be too sympathetic to the goings-on down in New Orleans. I have been an Episcopal priest for over twenty years, and an Episcopalian for more than half my life. In all that time, I can never remember signing on to conform to the theological opinions of foreign bishops. My ordination vows were pretty clear. Like thousands of my colleagues in the ministry, I have done my best to uphold the scriptures of the Old and New Testament as the word of God, and to conform to the doctrine and discipline of the Episcopal Church. I haven’t been very good at it, but I have kept at it. In that I’m in the same boat as everyone else, including the parishioners, priests and bishops who have served as deputies to General Convention over the years, as I did as a deputy from the diocese of New York in that now-demonized year of 2003. We haven’t been good at it, but we have at least been faithful.

So, as I said, thank God it’s been a quiet week here at the seminary in Alexandria. Our first year students have at last settled in, fired up to serve God in this branch of the Catholic church in spite of all these signs of disarray and fracture. These things go with the territory, as any resident of New Orleans might tell you. It was helpful (or was it a sign from heaven?) that the Morning Prayer readings this week were from the opening chapters of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians.

Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose.

Brave words, these. Who knows where Paul would have positioned himself in the present fracas. If anyone knew about disarray and fracture, it was Paul, and we know that he was never above fomenting a little disarray himself. But he was faithful. That’s all that can be asked of any of us in the end—fidelity to God’s embracing love as we have experienced it in Jesus, and fidelity to each other, members of Christ’s body, wherever we stand or refuse to stand on the issues that divide us. Signing on to this kind of love will get you pretty far, regardless of what the bishops say or don’t say—no matter what political catastrophes seem to lie in store for Christ’s body, wounded and redeemed.

The Rev. Roger Ferlo is Director of the Center for Lifetime Theological Education at Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria, where he also directs the Evening School of Theology. His books include Opening the Bible (Cowley 1997), Sensing God (Cowley 2001) and Heaven (Seabury 2007).

By Kathleen Henderson Staudt

What is the church for? In a 1938 lecture series on the BBC, collected in her book The Spiritual Life, the British writer and retreat leader Evelyn Underhill answered the question in a way that has challenged the church for the past century:

The Church is in the world to save the world. It is a tool of God for that purpose; not a comfortable religious club established in fine historical premises. Every one of its members is required, in one way or another, to cooperate with the Spirit in working for that great end: and much of this work will be done in secret and invisible ways. We are transmitters as well as receivers. Our contemplation and our action, our humble self-opening to God, keeping ourselves sensitive to his music and light, and our generous self-opening to our fellow creatures, keeping ourselves sensitive to their needs, ought to form one life, mediating between God and His world, and bringing the saving power of the Eternal into time.

Underhill appropriately focuses on the church’s mission in and for the world; to her mostly Church of England audience, she is challenging the image of the Church that became comfortable during the long centuries of what Loren Mead has labeled the “Christendom” paradigm, when most people were nominal Christians, even churchgoers, and the mission of the Church was seen as being overseas, far away and directed toward people distinctly “other” than the people in the pews. Mission was done by the institution; for the people in the pews, church attendance was a regular social obligation, to be taken with more or less seriousness depending on one’s particular spiritual needs and dispositions: to be part of a church was to support “a comfortable religious club.”

But Underhill recognizes that the institutional model, the “comfortable religious club,” is not a true embodiment of what the Church is called to be. Rather, each of us has a part to play in the mysterious work of God in the world, the Spirit’s work to restore, reconcile and heal. Her work focuses on the spiritual practices of the individual as guaranteeing the health of the “cells” in the Body of Christ on earth. For her, ordinary Christians, each of us pursuing the work that has been given us, are the ones who carry out the saving work of the Church, “bringing the saving power of the eternal into time.” In this short paragraph she lays out a theology of the ministry of all God’s people – the laos (λαός) – in the world.

Underhill’s image of the Church in the world invites what I might call a “poetic” way of looking at the church, the people of God – seeing the Church as a kind of work of art that communicates something to the world. It might seem that our disputes in the Anglican community about whom we may ordain and who decides how we should read Scripture have little to do with the ministry of the people in and for the world, but actually, poetically, they are important. Because we are an ordered church, our disputes about who we are and how we serve the world have focused, for the past 50 years, on whom we ordain. This may be appropriate to some extent since the ordained leaders of the Church do function as “metonymies” for our corporate identity – they are the parts standing for a whole. So if we claim to be an inclusive community, living and proclaiming the gospel in and for the world around us, it makes sense poetically that our visible leaders should reflect the diversity of the world we live in and the world we serve.

If the world looks at us as a corporate body and sees inclusiveness in our leadership and our practice, then we are communicating something about the hospitality of God. If they see us finding ways to stay together in Christ while holding a diversity of views, that is a revolutionary witness for our deeply polarized times. On the other hand, if all that the world sees is fighting and schism and mutual recrimination, then we are losing track of our real identity and purpose.

I turn to Underhill’s description of the purpose of the church in my prayers for the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion at this time, remembering that we are part of something much bigger that we believe God is trying to do through us, the people of God, in the world. I take comfort, too, from a beloved hymn we sing pretty often these days, and appropriately so – not least because its title reminds us of who we are: “The Church’s One Foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord”. I was particularly glad that it was part of the Commencement liturgy at Virginia Seminary last June:

Though with a scornful wonder, men see her sore oppressed
By schisms rent asunder, by heresies distressed
Yet saints their watch are keeping. Their cry goes up,”How long?”
And soon the night of weeping will be the morn of song. (Hymnal 525)

These words remind us that our tradition’s vision of the church as a “mystical body” is meant to give strength and energy to us as we try to live up to being the “Church visible -- the Communion of Saints “in the world to save the world, a tool of God for that purpose.” This vision does not deny that we have struggles and divisions. But both Underhill’s writing and the hymn call us back to awareness of our greater purpose and calling. It is a vision that sometimes seems improbable, but it is one that we are called to return to and refashion in our own generation, as faithfully as we can.

Dr Kathleen Henderson Staudt teaches courses in literature and theology at Virginia Theological Seminary and the University of Maryland, College Park. She is the author of At the Turn of a Civilisation: David Jones and Modern Poetics and Annunciations: Poems out of Scripture. Her blog is at poetproph.blogspot.com.

By Howard Anderson

I was down in Louisiana at a CREDO conference, earlier this week, and it has occurred to me that as the House of Bishops was sequestered with the Archbishop of Canterbury (the ABC) over in New Orleans, his task in trying to be a unifying force in the life of the Anglican Communion was not one that is to be envied. Archbishop Rowan Williams has four, maybe five Primates colonizing the United States, in an interesting kind of reverse colonization. He has The Episcopal Church. Yup, he’s stuck with us.

TEC has several bishops (to read the press accounts you would think it is dozens of bishops) vying to be the “one true Anglican Church” in the U.S. Further, he has a group of Primates from the Global South demanding that TEC “do what they say,” or be expelled. And they are being led by a Primate from Nigeria, Archbishop Peter Akinola, whose province is no longer in the Communion by virtue of a change he had made in the constitution of the Church of Nigeria, taking out all references to being in communion with The See of Canterbury (The Archbishop of Canterbury), the only sure fire way to be in this Communion.

Within the Church of England, the ABC (I have a friend who is a Buddhist priest who refers to him at the ABCdefghij…) has a very muscular evangelical party threatening to make more trouble themselves if he does not take a firm stand on the side of a conservative sola scriptura decidedly not mainstream Anglican stance which, if a student of his had written such a thing, Professor Williams would clearly have failed them. And yet, he is required by his position to doff his miter and politely listen to their demands.

I could go on with the issues that face our much maligned archbishop, who seems at present to be pleasing no one, but I won’t. If the ABC has a sense of humor, (he may well have, I don’t know him) he would have to laugh at the absurdity of it all. There was a grizzled veteran priest friend of mine in Minnesota who used to intone this little ditty every time there was a church fight. “Onward marches the Church of God, trampling each other into the sod.” And it does appear we seem intent on trampling one another into the ecclesial sod. Whatever is happening at the House of Bishops, I suspect that it is not easy for anyone.

But being down here, I have been given inspiration and it’s not just the chicory coffee and Cajun cooking. This time of year in Louisiana, is a time of love. The “love bugs” are mating, and they are everywhere, on everything and everybody, totally oblivious to their impending doom at the hands of whomever they land on. There are piles of them everywhere, joined together in an embrace that will end in the death of the male, I am told. They are so intent on their connubial task, so creative in their spiraling, helicoptering copulating, that nothing else matters. It may well be a metaphor for the Church and its various parties. You see, the life cycle of the love bugs is less than a week. But they are so focused on their mating that they are not paying attention to anything else. It almost seems as if, like the love bugs, traditionalist and progressive Episcopalians are so locked in our struggles, so sure of the rightness of our positions, that we are oblivious to the consequences. And it seems that it is who mates with whom that is the presenting issue. So much energy, money, time and emotional labor is being expended in this love bug dance, that despite our Presiding Bishop’s attempts to keep us focused on mission, we are spiraling toward the same fate as the benighted love bugs.

My friend Margo Maris, a very astute theologian, is here in Louisiana, too, as part of the CREDO faculty. Today I saw her scribbling something on a napkin, her face alight with what was clearly an “I have a good idea” look. I’ve known her long enough to know that when she has a good idea, it usually is A REALLY GOOD IDEA! What it said on the napkin was, “What we all have in common is that we all call ourselves the remnant.”

I think she is right. The archbishop needs to point our to bishops like Keith Ackerman in the Diocese of Quincy, and Robert Duncan in the Diocese of Pittsburgh, and their fellow aspiring schismatic bishops that they are, indeed, a saving remnant of orthodoxy in the Episcopal Church. Then he needs to point out to the progressives that they are, indeed, the remnant in the Communion that is still open to the movement of the Holy Spirit who has a nasty habit of “making all things new.” Then he can tell the disgruntled Primates from the global south that they are, indeed, a remnant people (and majority) that God will use to grow and shape the Church. Margo is right. We need to celebrate our remnant identities. While already the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan slipped into a phone booth and put on his mild-mannered Professor Williams hat, and wrote a wonderful collection of essays entitled Anglican Identities. Note the plural: identities. He understands that the whole universe has changed. Is light a wave or a particle? The answer is “yes.” Just as the mysterious three-in-one, Triune God is both one and three, so too, in the post modern era we can have more than one way to be a remnant. Maybe there is common ground after all.

After sleeping on her ideas, Margo said I should add a postscript. She had a wonderful image come to her. She said that when our foremothers looked at all the remnants they had left from years of sewing, they pondered what to do with them. None of the remnants were identical. They were all different colors, shapes, sizes and of different cloth altogether. “How will we make use of these pieces?” they asked. And with other women bringing their remnant pieces, they made quilts for warmth, pot holders to be able to pick up hot pots and pans, and they braided pieces into rugs that we could walk on to keep our feet from getting cold. Hmmm…how will we use our varied, beautifully-colored, odd shaped remnants? Only God knows. And I heard God was a very fine quilter indeed.

The Rev. Dr. Howard Anderson is Warden and President of the Cathedral College at Washington National Cathedral. He was a long time General Convention deputy.

By Sam Candler

We hear claims from all parties about the most mistaken resolutions passed in recent Episcopal General Conventions. Was it the 2003 resolution consenting to the election of the Bishop of New Hampshire? Or was it the 2006 resolution calling for “restraint” in the consecration of “any candidate whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church”?

My choice for most mistaken resolution might be the one of the year 1979 which removed “Protestant” from our formal name. It was mistaken on at least two levels. First, the removal denied a deep and critical piece of our historic identity. One might argue that the Anglican Church was probably “Protestant” even before the Reformation; here in the United States, we were at one point one of the proudest of Protestant churches.

Secondly, and more importantly now, the resolution which removed “Protestant” from our name was simply inaccurate. For, if we are learning anything in the last several years, it is that many of our leaders love to speak forth, to “pro-test,” in the name of individual conscience and faithful liberty. These claims and Protestant actions come from both the liberal and conservative parties. Liberals claim to declare a new interpretation of orthodox faith for a new generation. Conservatives wander around the world looking for re-alignment and a more perfect church. Essentially, both these maneuvers are Protestant moves.

However, I do not begrudge these Protestant moves. Good Protestantism is always critical of institutions, especially centralized bureaucracies. Good Protestantism, I would claim, exists even in the Roman Catholic Church. That noble and honorable Church, looking solid and immovable, yet contains all manner of progressive thinkers and idiosyncratic reactionaries.

At the best moments of our past, the Protestant Episcopal Church was able to honor both the theological conscience of the individual believer and the classical orders of apostolic faith. We were both Protestant and Catholic, to the frustration of other Christians who always wanted to peg us one way or the other. But we were broader than that, and usually more attractive.

While the world turns its media magnifying lenses towards this week’s Episcopal House of Bishops meeting in New Orleans, I advise us to look elsewhere for the broader life of the Episcopal Church. I have nothing against this House of Bishops meeting; I am among many who offer my prayers and support and love. It’s just that I believe the breadth and grace of the Episcopal Church exists more specifically in the thousands of parishes and communities of faith which those bishops serve. Most of the bishops in New Orleans probably agree with me; the real “Church” is among our people, not in the ordained positions of leadership.

We are a Protestant Church. How else to explain the diffidence and exasperation which clamors even now right along with the rejoicing and singing? How else to explain that awkward style in which our House of Bishops and House of Deputies act together?

We are a Catholic Church, too. Not many of us want to abandon the historic Christian faith. In fact, our structures appear more Catholic than most of our other Protestant denominational colleagues. The fact that we appear so hierarchical is probably why the generally unknowing public media keeps speaking of schism and looking for authoritarian answers.

We are mistaken if we think that any meeting of the Episcopal House of Bishops, or, indeed, any meeting of the Primates of the Anglican Communion, or any Lambeth Conference of Bishops, can affect our relationship with the liberating grace and love of Jesus Christ. That’s what makes us Protestant. No matter what occurs in Anglican hierarchies in upcoming months, our churches and communities of faith will continue in much the same manner – liberal or conservative—as we did before.

By the same token, we are also mistaken if we think that any meeting of those esteemed leaders can change our historic and universal faith. That’s what makes us Catholic. Yes, councils can err; but councils also tend to correct themselves. They tend to correct themselves if we, the members, hold on to each other. They tend to correct themselves if we remain Catholic.

Finally, however, no authoritarian answer will lead us out of our present frustrations. Let us not surrender too easily our own gifts of God’s grace to a legalistic and simplistic authoritarianism. Authoritarianism, whether liberal or conservative, is the enemy of healthy faith; it does legalistic and totalitarian harm in both Protestant and Catholic structures.

The name I most prefer for our dear and historic church is “Anglican.” That word represents deep, broad, and graceful Christianity. But at the 2009 General Convention, I would vote for restoring the grand name “Protestant” to our name. I would vote for including “Catholic” too!

The Very Rev. Sam Candler is dean of St. Philip's Cathedral in Atlanta. He helped start that city’s interfaith group, and leads regular community bible studies. He is also inspired by playing jazz piano, hunting, astronomy, and poetry. His sermons and reflections on “Good Faith and Common Good” can be found on the Cathedral web site.

By Jim Naughton

In February, the Primates of the Anglican Communion released a set of “recommendations” to the Episcopal Church; warned that if the Church did not comply there would be “consequences for the full participation of the Church in the life of the Communion,” and set September 30 as the deadline for the Church’s response.

On Thursday, just 10 days before the deadline, Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury and members of the Joint Standing Committee of the Primates’ Meeting and the Anglican Consultative Council, begin two days of meetings in New Orleans with the Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops to determine what sort of response is forthcoming. But much of the drama that one will no doubt find the press drumming up this week has already been drained from the situation.

In inviting the bishops of the Episcopal Church (with the significant exception of Gene Robinson of New Hampshire) to the Lambeth Conference next summer, the Archbishop has already signaled that he is not eager to exclude the Episcopal Church from “full participation” in the various quasi-governmental bodies that help hold the Communion together. And in jumping the deadline and ordaining bishops to work in the United States, primates such as Peter Akinola of Nigeria, Henry Orombi of Uganda and Benjamin Nzimbi of Kenya have already played their most potent card to much fanfare, but uncertain—and quite possibly minimal—effect.

But if September 30 deadline has lost much of its dramatic luster, the meeting in New Orleans may nonetheless yield significant results.

One indication of what might transpire is given by the composition of the archbishop’s delegation. In March, the House of Bishops requested a meeting with the archbishop and the Primates’ Standing Committee. But the Archbishop will be accompanied not only the Primates Standing Committee, but the Standing Committee of the Anglican Consultative Council. Throughout the current crisis, the issue of which of the Anglican Communion’s four “instruments of unity” would make the final decisions on the issues of sexuality and membership has been hotly contested. The Primates, almost, by default, have taken the lead because they meet more often than the Anglican Consultative Council (every three years) or the Lambeth Conference (every ten). But a significant tide of resistance against primatial dominance has been building simultaneously.

In bringing the Joint Standing Committee, Archbishop Williams is opening up the process, although who will make the final decision (if a final decision indeed gets made) remains an open question. He is also enfranchising the one Communion-wide body not composed entirely of bishops.

Perhaps more important to the issue at hand, the Joint Standing Committee is also the body which commissioned the sub-group, led by Williams himself, to evaluate the Episcopal Church’s response to the Windsor Report. That report, forgotten after the Primates released their “recommendations” and set their deadline, gave the Episcopal Church relatively high marks. The meeting presents an opportunity for the Joint Standing Committee to make certain that Resolution B033 does indeed indicate that “the majority of bishops with jurisdiction… will refuse consent in future to the consecration of a bishop whose manner of life challenges the wider church and leads to further strains on Communion,“ as the sub-group concluded, and to seek greater clarify on the Church’s stance regarding the blessing of same-sex unions.

On both of these issues it seems at least possible that even many of the more liberal members of the House will be able to say the sort of things the committee wants to hear. A minority in the House doesn’t like the fact that a candidate in a same-sex relationship would not currently receive a majority of consents from diocesan bishops, and hence could not take office. But they acknowledge it as a political reality, and probably wouldn’t mind saying so.

The committee is especially interested in understanding the state of play in Episcopal diocese on same-sex blessings. Can the bishops say that neither the Church nor any diocese will authorize a “public Rite of Blessing” (per The Windsor Report and the sub-group report) or a Rite to Blessing (per the Primates’ Communiqué from Dar es Salaam)? The meaning of the phrase (public) Rite of Blessing has been debated intensely. And as neither the Archbishop nor the Joint Standing Committee has attempted to settle the issue, it is possible that this ambiguity is intentional. If the question is whether Episcopal diocesan bishops are willing to postpone the development of an authorized text to be used in blessing same-sex relationships, then the answer, in all likelihood is yes. If the question is whether every diocesan bishop is willing to enforce a ban on the blessing of same-sex relationships, the answer is almost certainly no.

The first interpretation seems to be the one shared by the authors of The Windsor Report and the sub-group report (although, again, this has been hotly debated). Both documents attempt (with uneven results) to capture the current state of play regarding the blessings of same-sex unions in Episcopal dioceses, and each raises warning in instances when dioceses where steps toward the developments of authorized text or standards were under development. In addition, the Archbishop is no doubt aware that unions are blessed in a number of Anglican provinces, including his own, and an evenhanded Communion-wide ban would be both unpopular and impossible to enforce.

The other difficult issue concerns the pastoral oversight of theologically conservative parishes that are out of sympathy with their bishop, and theologically conservative diocese’s out of sympathy with the Presiding Bishop and the General Convention. On this front it seems unlikely the bishops can do much better than the Episcopal Church has already done—unless Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori comes to the meeting with another oversight proposal.

A little history is helpful here. In March 2004, the House of Bishops passed a delegated episcopal pastoral oversight proposal which went as far as the House felt it could in guaranteeing sympathetic oversight to any parish that requested it. (The House does not have the authority to force a diocesan bishop to offer alternative oversight.) The plan was commended in The Windsor Report, which said it provided, “a very significant degree of security” to parishes that felt alienated from their diocesan bishop. The Primates, however, felt the need to establish a panel of reference at their meeting at Dromantine in February 2005, “to supervise the adequacy” of these alternative oversight arrangements.

(The remainder of that paragraph reads: “Equally, during this period we commit ourselves neither to encourage nor to initiate cross-boundary interventions. That is a matter for another time.” But do notice that various primates have released themselves unilaterally from the commitments they have made in these documents while continuing to call the Episcopal Church to account.)

The same primates who insisted on the creation of the panel became disillusioned with it, hence the proposal they embraced at Dar es Salaam in February, under which a Pastoral Council consisting of “up to five members: two nominated by the Primates, two by the Presiding Bishop, and a Primate of a Province of the Anglican Communion nominated by the Archbishop of Canterbury to chair the Council” would be given broad powers not only to extend pastoral care of certain parishes and dioceses, but to participate in the adjudication of disputes within the life of the Episcopal Church. (In so doing they ignored a generous offer of alternative primatial oversight from Bishop Jefferts Schori that quite likely would have resulted in the same primatial vicar being named, and some of the same bishops, including Williams, being involved in his or her supervision, but would have vested final authority in Bishop Jefferts Schori.)

The Primates’ proposal was roundly rejected in late March by the House of Bishops in a vote that brought liberals and moderate conservatives such as Dorsey Henderson of Upper South Carolina and John Howard of Florida together to rebuff the Primates attempt to exercise an authority that no agreement, written or unwritten, confers upon them. The proposal was also rejected, in June, by the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church.

The Archbishop of Canterbury’s decision to accept the bishops invitation to their meeting came just three weeks after it was offered, and was the first indication that he did not necessarily view the Episcopal Church’s rejection of the Council scheme as grounds for exclusion from the councils of the Communion. The invitations to Lambeth were another sign that whatever the Episcopal Church’s perceived transgressions, he still considered himself in Communion with its bishops. He underlined this message by snubbing those bishops who had been ordained by African provinces to work in the United States. (At that time this included bishops of the Rwandan-backed Anglican Mission in America and the Nigerian-backed Convocation of Anglicans in America. The Churches of Kenya and Uganda have since ordained bishops as well.)

To clarify matters further, one of Williams' advisors last week told the Living Church that:

it was a serious misreading of the primates’ communiqué to say that an ultimatum had been given to the House of Bishops to take certain actions by Sept. 30 or face expulsion from the Anglican Communion. The communiqué had asked for certain clarifications from the House of Bishops, he said, but did not envision a breaching of The Episcopal Church’s constitution.

It may be that Williams had determined that he has given the radical conservative faction led by Akinola (and stag managed by his American allies) as much ground as he can. It may be that he considers its jurisdictional innovations more threatening to the future of the Communion than the two North American churches innovations on issues of human sexuality. It may also be that other leaders in the Communion, including some in Africa, have informed him of their concerns that Akinola’s faction may be willing to use other pretexts to plant its flag in other provinces when the moment suits them.

Whatever the case, House of Bishops has an opportunity to improve and solidify the Church’s standing within the Communion by offering the Archbishop and the Joint Standing Committee much of the reassurance that they seek. These reassurances will be all the more meaningful if the resolutions that embody them can be crafted in a way that appeals to theologically conservative bishops still committed to the Church.

It is not within the power of the House of Bishops, the Joint Standing Committee or Archbishop Williams to stop Archbishop Akinola and his allies from breaking from the Anglican Communion. But it is within their power to appeal to the substantial minorities in the Church and the Communion who are uneasy about the course the Episcopal Church has charted, but appalled by the rhetoric and tactics of Akinola and his virulent friends. And there has been no better moment to do so.

Jim Naughton is the editor of the Episcopal Café .

By Diana Butler Bass

September is my favorite month of the year. In these embracing days, as summer wanes, certain things signal autumn: the shopping trip for new school clothes, the slant of sunlight through the tress, the breeze bearing Canadian coolness. And, perhaps most notably, every Episcopal Church hangs out a banner bearing the words: “Homecoming Sunday.”

Although I have never read a history of this custom, I suspect that Homecoming Sunday began in the early twentieth century as a way of welcoming back parishioners from their summer places after months away from church. At that time, Episcopalians conceived of church as religious “homes,” complete with parish parlors full of extended family, bustling with quotidian chores of flower arranging, ironing, and cooking, all under the care of a priest called “Father.” Homecoming Sunday liturgically marked a return to the regular schedule of work and school, and the family gathered around the table to engage worship and ministry once again. Coming home served as a welcoming metaphor in this domestic spiritual world.

If you grew up in the church, Homecoming Sunday is a lovely custom. And therein lies the problem. We no longer live in a world of Episcopal churchgoers where hanging out a sign announcing “Homecoming Sunday” invites the neighborhood to church. To us theological insiders, “Homecoming Sunday” may be a way of saying “Welcome Home to God,” a sort of subtle Episcopal evangelism. Of course, we would welcome newcomers—not just returnees—on Homecoming Sunday. Good intentions aside, in a society where less than 18% of Americans attend church on a weekly basis, Homecoming Sunday seems increasingly irrelevant and even inhospitable. How can a church invite people to homecoming who have never been in the building in the first place? How can anyone understand finding a home in God if they have no spiritual language to express their longings? From the point of view of twenty-first century post-Christian people, the “Homecoming Sunday” banner may as well read “Members Only Club.”

With so much groaning about numerical decline and awkward evangelism, Homecoming Sunday is a good opportunity to rethink the messages we send to our neighbors. Therein, I have a modest proposal. Can Homecoming Sunday in favor of Open House Sunday. Instead of welcoming members back, invite everybody to church. Open God’s house to complete strangers, seekers, the curious, and the noisy. Not just Episcopal alumni.

Although church folk never consider it, the very act of walking on church property—much less through church doors—is a completely terrifying prospect for most people. Take away their fear. Give them a reason to visit. Offer tours. Let the neighbors roam through your building, trample your carpets, and ask impertinent questions about your furniture and decorations. Explain to them the meanings of Christian architecture, the stories depicted in the windows. Feed them. Have a party. Do not recruit for committee slots or solicit money for any purpose. Expect nothing in return.

Finally, measure the custom of Homecoming Sunday by the words of Jesus regarding hospitality, words that depict the church as an open community: “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors . . . But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you” (Luke 14: 12-13). We may well discover that “Open House,” describes both the ancient Christian practice of hospitality and the contemporary Episcopal Church far better than any old-fashioned homecoming.

Diana Butler Bass is the author of the award-winning Christianity for the Rest of Us: How the Neighborhood Church is Transforming the Faith (Harper One, 2006). She is a member of Church of the Epiphany in Washington, D.C.

by Howard Anderson

I took my summer vacation at our cabin on a lake in far northern Minnesota. Because our daughter was doing Clinical Pastoral Education and her husband had long and unpredictable hours as a medical resident, Will, who turned six this summer, spent the entire summer at the lake with my wife, Linda, and for the most of July, with me as well. He learned to water ski, snorkel, swim without his life jacket and became an expert frog catcher. He even caught and released his first “big” fish, a toothy and fierce looking northern pike. The month wasn’t as relaxing as it might have been, but oh how we did play! Each morning, earlier than I would perhaps have chosen, there was a little hand on my arm, and I would look into the very face of God and hear “Papi-what are we going to play today?” The innocence, the wonder at the smallest thing, the lack of judging made the month playful indeed. I think that is one of things God intends for us. And, I contend that we Episcopalians have a special vocation to say to the world, “let us play!”

A friend of mine, a Lutheran pastor, named something about us Episcopalians that I was grateful to claim. He said, “You Episcopalians seem very earnest and dedicated in your worship, but you don’t seem to take yourselves so darn seriously.” But he went on to say, “You guys are the only denomination that can laugh at yourselves often enough to keep conversation going to be able to make decisions. But lately, you have seemed to get all serioused up.”

I think he is right. We are getting “all serioused up” about the latest dust up in a five hundred year family squabble in Anglicanism between the ‘puritan party” who embrace the “sola scriptura” scripture only motto of Martin Luther and the continental reformers, and the via media, middle way of the broad church English Reformers. What I find as I read people on both sides in the “recent unpleasantness,” (with apologies to our southern readers) is a lack of both humor, and the requisite amount of Anglican humility about just what one can know for certain about the great mystery that is God. I love to use a paraphrase of a prayer that a retired Primate of the Church of Ireland used at his farewell dinner over 100 years ago. “Lord, keep me always in the company of those who fearlessly seek the truth. And, my holy God, hide me under the shadow of thy wings from those who think they already have found it.” I use this prayer before preaching on occasions. I can often tell, among those thousand or more (mostly visitors) worshipping here at the National Cathedral at the 11am service, who the Episcopalians are, because they will be the only people chuckling.

Another prayer I use before preaching is “Holy One, May these words be your words. And if they are not, may these clever people hear in them what you need them to hear.” And with all my heart I believe that these two prayers are on target. Any preacher that has been preaching for awhile will know that sermons they think are home runs often seem to fall on deaf ears. Then we give a sermon we are not proud of and a dozen parishioners say, “Wow, that really is what I needed to hear. Thank you!” God uses our words to reach the people and in true Christian preaching the medium through which the preacher and the listener communicate is none other than the Holy Spirit. It is a mystery. One of the things that can be found in the writings and sermons of the early Anglicans was a great humility about what one can know about God. They warned against the dangers of the “puritans” and Reformed traditions coming close to saying that intellectual or even emotional assent to a confessional statement was a prerequisite for God’s Grace to be received. That way lies hubris! And hubris is what I see in Archbishop Akinola’s latest broadside at the American and Canadian churches. His insistence that he, and other Global South Anglicans have the one true understanding of how God’s Word is revealed crosses the line between Anglican humility and the confessional certainty that the Anglican reformers refused to embrace out of their deep and abiding belief that God’s Grace was a free gift to all, and did not depend on human intellect alone.

Sadly, when I read the arguments in the debate about inclusion or, orthodoxy (take your pick and place yourself in the theological spectrum) I find people speaking “ex cathedra.” I am always tempted to interject humor into these heated discussions, and most often, when I am able to get a word in edgewise, it at least loosens up the combatants a bit and allows everyone to catch their breath. Deep in the DNA of Anglicanism is the fact that unlike other Christians, who start their faith story with the cross, we begin with the doctrine of creation. In my Minnesota years, I often would tease the Lutherans, who, in their confession of sin, begin by saying, “I confess that I am by nature, sinful and unclean.” I joke that Episcopalians, of course, actually seem to take the Biblical text seriously. I tease, “Oh yes, in Genesis God says, “We made them, male and female we made them, in our own image, and they are sinful and unclean.” Most often there was a stirring defense by my Lutheran colleagues that the confession did not reflect the ELCA doctrine of creation. More often then not, the pastors would say, “We don’t use that confession any more.” I think our Rite I Book of Common Prayer confession of sin says best what our theology of sin and creation are. “We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness, which we from time to time most grievously have committed.” But we are, as scripture tells us, very good by nature. We are, Jesus tells us, “loved unconditionally.” Nothing God has made is unclean, scripture tells us in Acts 10. But our Puritan brothers” (we hear little if anything from our sisters in places like Nigeria), insist that they know better, and have chosen the latest people to exclude. They seem unable to be embraced by the wonder of God’s liberating love without having a caveat that limits God’s Grace. Maybe God’s Grace just seems too good to be true. It is you know.

But in the light of this almost impossibly good news, how can we help from joyfully embracing that abundant life. God did not need the creation. God was, in our Anglican understanding, already complete, and in the community of the Holy Trinity before “all things were made through the Word.” And we read that God “made the great leviathan just for the sport of it!” And we humans, who are invited to become co-creators with The Holy One, through the power of Jesus the Word made flesh and the Holy Spirit, are allowed the joy of co-creating in a spirit of “just for the sport of it!”

A story is told about the Episcopal priest and Southern Baptist pastor sitting next to one another on the airplane. When the flight attendant asked for drink orders, the pastor ordered ginger ale, and the priest ordered a gin and tonic. The priest soon could feel the beady eyed stare of his seat mate and finally asked, “Does it upset you that I ordered alcohol?” The pastor replied with some vehemence, “It’s disgraceful that a man of the cloth would, with his clerical collar on, order alcohol and be a bad role model for all the other passengers.” The priest replied, “But Jesus performed his first miracle at a wedding feast in Cana of Galilee when he turned water into wine, and fine wine at that.” With a scowl the pastor replied, “Yes, and I think less of Him for it too.” I decided to tease a Methodist friend and suggested that the first miracle of Jesus in the Methodist version was that Jesus turned the wine into water.

I think that our response to God’s largesse, God’s abundant, extravagant, even wasteful love is to embrace life joyfully. Imagine the Lambeth Conference next year with Monty Python style humor. Imagine Rowan Williams teamed with American Episcopalian, Robin Williams doing “the Williams brothers do church humor,” to loosen up the crowd. We know that laughter is one of the very best physiological outlets for tension. And yet we often come to these international, national or diocesan gatherings loaded for bear, eager to tell the “other guys” with whom we disagree, just how wrong they are. What if we started with “let us pray,” and followed it immediately with “let us play.” We need to give it a try. All this seriousness is getting us nowhere.

The Rev. Dr. Howard Anderson is Warden and President of the Cathedral College at Washington National Cathedral. He was a long time General Convention deputy.

by Marshall Scott

A few years ago, while I was President of the Assembly of Episcopal Healthcare Chaplains, I was contacted by a person with the Church Pension Group. She called to ask me if I knew just how many Episcopal hospitals there were.

Now, this was something officers of AEHC had been thinking about for a while. The sense among chaplains was that there were fewer hospitals than there had been, and probably more retirement communities and nursing homes. On the other hand, we didn’t have hard numbers about hospitals.

In part, that was because we had trouble with the definition. What would be required to identify a hospital or other health care institution as “Episcopal?” As we discussed it, we came to three large categories. There were those hospitals that still had some official relationship with a diocese or other institution within the Episcopal Church. While no money might go back and forth, they were still considered explicitly as ministries of the diocese; the diocesan bishop was an ex-officio member, if not chair, of the hospital’s board; and there were positions that required an Episcopalian (for example, a chaplaincy program directed by an Episcopal priest, or a percentage of board members). There were also hospitals that had been founded by an institution or by members of the Episcopal Church, and had since changed hands; but that still had a visible expression of Episcopal heritage (for example, again, requirement for an Episcopal chaplain, or certain board memberships). Finally, there were those hospitals that had been founded by Episcopalians and had since changed hands; but had no visible expression of Episcopal heritage, except perhaps in the name of the institution and the memories of area congregations. Yet, with those significant differences, all might be called, at least in some contexts, “Episcopal hospitals.”

With all the changes in health care, and especially the mergers, centralization, and corporate changes of the past generation, there are fewer hospitals still owned or otherwise officially related to dioceses or other institutions of the Church. At the same time, with changes in demographics, both in the Church and in society at large, Church institutions have built more retirement communities and long term care centers, most connected in multilevel facilities.

On my own blog I’ve done some reflecting on what might describe an Episcopal culture for health care. I came to that question in part from the original question from the employee of the Church Pension Group, and in part from watching colleagues in other hospitals. Institutions connected with the Roman Catholic Church and with the Seventh-day Adventist Church have distinct ideas of what describes, respectively, a Catholic or an Adventist institution. I continue to think about how we would identify an Episcopal culture for health care.

But in thinking about that, I wondered just how involved the Episcopal Church is in health care. Now, there are a number of things one might measure, but I thought a simple place to start was in The Episcopal Church Annual. Within the Annual is a section titled, “Social Agencies and Institutions.” While there other things to note in that section, I moved to the subsection, “Health & Welfare Agencies Related To Dioceses or Parishes of the Episcopal Church.” There, listed by diocese, are a number of ministries, some of which are explicitly related to health care. To begin with, I simply went through and counted, and came up with the following numbers:

Hospitals: 17

Retirement and Long Term Care facilities: 145

Other Residential Facilities: 36 Counseling Centers and Chaplaincies: 54

Other: 47

That comes to a total of 299 ministries.

Now, there are some observations to be made about those numbers. The number of hospitals is low. In two dioceses with related hospital systems, the numbers represent the single system rather than the multiple institutions in each system. It also doesn’t include at least one specialized hospital in Haiti largely supported by parishes in the United States, or one hospital related to a religious order. At the same time, taking those that I know of into account, the number is still perhaps 30 throughout the Episcopal Church.

The other categories are also interesting. For example, while most retirement communities include some assisted-living and long term care beds, I’m not certain that all do. I included them anyway. By the same token, there are some social service agencies that might provide counseling and might have been included in that category; but because the description didn’t suggest that I didn’t include them. I noted in several dioceses free-standing chaplaincies serving hospitals that had once been owned by dioceses but were no longer – a sense of Episcopal presence without organic Episcopal connection. Some substance abuse ministries were inpatient, and so listed as “Other Residential;” while others were outpatient, and so listed under “Other.”

Some diocesan ministries did stand out for me. The Diocese of Honduras supports twelve medical clinics. The Diocese of Spokane supports ten residences for senior citizens. Many dioceses support various ministries to persons with AIDS.

One other number did interest me: the number of dioceses represented. In the list in the Annual, only 85 of the 111 dioceses of the Church list any Health and Welfare ministries. Of the 85 that do, eight don’t list any that I could identify with health care. So, these 299 ministries represent seventy-seven dioceses, or about 70% of the dioceses of the Episcopal Church. It’s not that I don’t think there are health care ministries in the other 34 dioceses. As I said, I know of some that aren’t listed, and I’m sure there are others I don’t know about. At the same time, I’m also sure there are some in listed dioceses that aren’t listed in the Annual, and so I might speculate that the proportions are roughly appropriate. That is, the health care ministries in unlisted dioceses are not likely to be so numerous as to radically change the rough proportions of what ministries are supported, and where we would find them.

Another limitation of these numbers is that they don’t represent significant programs of and groups within the Episcopal Church functioning on a national level to support local ministries. The work in supporting health ministries of the Office of the Suffragan Bishop for Chaplaincies and significant programs in support of persons with AIDS, addiction, and disabilities are listed in other places, and so are not in this list. The same is true of the Assembly of Episcopal Healthcare Chaplains, of which I am a member, and of National Episcopal Health Ministries, a network supporting parish-based health ministers and parish nurses. We can also appreciate the focus of the Office of Government Relations and the Episcopal Public Policy Network, especially as we get closer to national elections.

However, my guess is that the 299 ministries identified in those seventy-seven dioceses are those most likely to be visible to Episcopalians and to others in their daily lives (with the possible exception of parish nurses and health ministers). While the national programs are important, they are primarily ministries and organization within the Church to support ministries of the Church. I think the separate institutions and ministries are more tangible expressions of the Episcopal Church’s work in health care. They incarnate the concerns of the Episcopal Church for health care.

I’m still working on what “an Episcopal culture for health care" might look like. However, it is clear that the Episcopal Church is concerned about health care and involved in providing it. While my review is hardly exhaustive, it is sufficient to make that clear. As we “seek to serve Christ in all persons,” and to “proclaim by example the Good News,” we are caring for bodies as well as souls. We can appreciate these Episcopal ministries in health care. We can pray that over time we will see more.

The Rev. Marshall Scott is a chaplain in the Saint Luke’s Health System, a ministry of the Diocese of West Missouri. A past president of the Assembly of Episcopal Healthcare Chaplains, he keeps the blog Episcopal Chaplain at the Bedside.

By Nicholas Knisely

I’ve been a parish priest long enough that I’ve been through five General Conventions. I learned pretty early on to dread them. Not so much because I had anything to do with them, or frankly in the beginning even paid attention to them. I feared them because of what my parishioners reactions were going to be to actions that General Convention had taken, and with which they disagreed.

When I first started out in the priesthood the concerns were often about nuclear disarmament. General Convention would pass a resolution expressing the concerns of the Episcopal Church, and I would have a parishioner come into my office generally arguing that the Church was incompetent to be making such statements. Then it because gun control. Then it became the Episcopal Church’s stance on the government of Nicaragua. Lately it’s been the issue of the full inclusion of gay and lesbian Christians. What I noticed over the years, that no matter what the issue, the person’s concern almost always ended at “The Church has taken a position that I disagree with and think is dead wrong. What do I do now? Do I find another denomination?”

My standard response was to remind my congregant that this church had a different understanding of dissent than other churches might have if you dissented from their version of Convention. When Convention takes a stance on a controversial secular or political issue, though that stance would be used to inform the workings of church structures, there was no expectation that individual Episcopalians would have to agree or even that they should agree with said positions. My standard quip to the parishioner was now that they were upset over something that Convention had done, they should rejoice that they had thus gained their full member in the Episcopal Church. (And then I would share my own lists of things I disagreed with. Like the move to the Revised Common Lectionary and ...)

But none of that meant that we stopped being fully a part of the Church. The Episcopal Church really only expects that people will agree (ultimately) on the words used in our authorized liturgies, based as they are on Holy Scripture, the Traditions of the Church and our best use of human reason. We understand that people may need to dissent from even these on occasions, but the expectation is that the community as a whole holds to these as core vehicles that carry us to a full and healthy faith in Jesus and as such members of the community should be diligent in working out their doubts and concerns with them. (Yet another reason we call it the Book of Common Prayer.)

I was reminded of this common experience the other day when I read an increasingly common meme on some of the Anglican blogs that the Episcopal Church is no longer recognizably Christian. The argument most typically states that since the Presiding Bishop has made a statement that the hearer disagrees with or that doesn’t demonstrate a suitable doctrinal basis of the Christian faith, the Presiding Bishop is accused and summarily judged to be a “heretic” or more commonly a person who has repudiated Jesus and thus an apostate. I’m not willing to agree to any of the characterizations by the way, but I skip over their refutation because it’s the next step in the argument that I find most troubling. That step is to claim that since the Presiding Bishop has made a statement that the writer objects to, the millions of people who belong to the Episcopal Church are also therefore heretics and/or apostates who have materially repudiated Jesus.

It’s the argument that “as goes the Presiding Bishop, so goes the Episcopal Church” with which I find fault. The Presiding Bishop is not a form of a Pope who is recognized to speak authoritatively or infallibly for the Episcopal Church. She or he is simply the bishop who is elected by the other bishops to chair the meetings of the House of Bishops, and in recent times to oversee the administrative functioning of the Episcopal Church. So an argument that claims that any views of the Presiding Bishop are necessarily normative for the other bishops much less the whole of the Episcopal Church is just wrong. It’s the equivalent to saying that because the President of the United States makes a claim, all Americans now believe what he has said.

The real office of Primate in the Episcopal Church while titularly belonging to the Presiding Bishop, is actually carefully apportioned to the whole Church in the General Convention. But, now speaking as a parish priest, we’ve long recognized that General Convention often does not take its responsibility in the primatial role seriously. There have been many resolutions and canons passed by General Convention that simply represent the scoring of a political victory by one group or another within the denomination. Some of them are obviously political and some are more obscurely so. However, General Convention most clearly does express its primatial office when it authorizes liturgies for regular use and/or issues a new Book of Common Prayer.

Now, should the primatial authority of the Episcopal Church authorize a new Prayer Book that clearly and intentionally repudiates the sovereignty of Jesus, or denies the Doctrine of the Trinity or rejects the Creeds and other historic formulations of the universal Church, then I would agree that the Episcopal Church is no longer a church and that it has come time to leave for a place that is authentically Christian. But I do not see that such a thing has happened. At most you can argue that Episcopal Church has been overly tolerant of local option and/or questionable teaching by its members, but it has never authoritatively denied Christ.

I have had the real honor of working in ecumenical circles and in formal discussions with other denominations. When talking to denominations outside the Anglican Communion we assume that what they teach and believe is what is found in their authoritative documents and normative practices. Perhaps its time to ask that the Churches within the Anglican Communion with whom we are in Communion and the bishops of the Episcopal Church who are now claiming the Episcopal Church is non-Christian, should show the same courtesy to us?

The Very Rev. W. Nicholas Knisely is Dean of Trinity Cathedral in Phoenix Ariz. He serves as Chair of the Standing Commission on Episcopal Church Communication, is active in ecumenical works and was originally trained as an astronomer before he was ordained. His blog is Entangled States.

By John B. Chilton

In the summers I live in a rural community where there is an Episcopal conference center. If you care to dig deeply enough, you can figure out which one. But what I want to share is my gratitude to the young adults – and not so young adults – who work as cabin counselors on Episcopal camp staffs across the country. What I have the pleasure of witnessing locally happens in many places.

Part of the conference center operation is a collection of camps for children and young people. From mid-June through mid-August there are always four to five camps running with over 200 campers at any point in time. Some camps are for kids with challenges such as the camp for teens and young adults with Down syndrome. Some camps are outdoor-oriented, another is focused on the arts, and another does organized sports. Camp enrollment this year remained at capacity despite the widely publicized (or shall I say, megaphoned) departure of a few churches in my diocese back in December.

All of the camps are coeducational. Limited access to a mirror, a shower, and a laundry for a week or more conveys a lesson in mutuality that, I suspect, is a beneficial life-skill to develop early on. It doesn’t hurt that each camp staff works together and effectively models healthy working relationships between adults.

One camp may focus on outdoor activities and another on music and drama, but every camp is Christ-centered. It’s not just camp with an Episcopal name attached. There is daily worship. There is weekly worship where all the camps gather together (and a bishop is likely to be present). An environment is created where it is safe to express doubt and ask questions. The purpose of the camps is to build up the body of Christ. This is what the campers take away with them when they leave the mountain.

No camp operates without staff such as directors and nurses. But as I have observed these camps over many years, I have developed a special appreciation for the cabin counselors. Living with a cabin of kids 24/7 for several months is not something everyone is called to do. To take one example of many foregone comforts of home, how many of us would be willing to go two months with no more than a suitcase of clothes? I simply cannot comprehend how they maintain their energy, enthusiasm and patience. Counselors are the heart of camps. In virtuous cycle, the camps attract counselors who are committed to working with kids and staying on message – building up the body of Christ.

Over the years many campers have become counselors. Several campers and counselors have entered the priesthood, and the camps have produced a bishop or two. But what I believe is the finest dividend of camps is that so many campers and counselors have become nothing more or less than active members of the ministry of the laity. Praise God.

Camps are risky. You might fall and twist your knee. Your life might be changed. One counselor this year, a bruiser of a football player, said at end of his camp’s session “My life has been changed. I now know my vocation is to work with kids.”

I’d be interested in reading your comments about your experience in church camp as a camper or counselor.

Dr. John B. Chilton is an economist at the American University of Sharjah (United Arab Emirates) specializing in applied game theory. He maintains two personal blogs, The Emirates Economist and New Virginia Church Man.

By Howard Anderson

Being up here in the north woods, on a stunningly beautiful lake, I am remembering the faithful leaders of the Episcopal Church in this area. It was a part of the Diocese of Minnesota for most of the time the Church has been in Minnesota. But for a brief time, it was in the Missionary Diocese of Duluth (which is 200 miles east of Bad Medicine Lake.) The Ojibwe clergy whom I knew growing up said that if they hadn’t been good hunters and skilled fishermen, their families would have suffered hunger. “The stipends were pitiful,” but they remained faithful. To this day, the heroes of the faith, and the churches they established serve the Indian community with heart, hope and energy. In Ojibwe country, The White Earth Reservation has four churches, Red Lake two, Leech Lake three. The Dakota people are served by churches in three reservations and there are two urban, intertribal churches. My own reading of church history detects a subtext in which those churches under oppression or hardship tend to produce faithful and faith-filled Christians.

Most of my “church heroes” are people who were faithful in difficult situations. A Turtle Mountain (North Dakota) Ojibwe leader walked 800 miles round trip to secure a priest for the little congregation which, without prayer books, had read Morning Prayer faithfully for over 40 years. He had used all his worldly wealth to buy the lumber to build a church, and the lumber sat in his house for decades before it was built. Faithfulness in adversity.

I think of the “patron saint” of the Diocese of Minnesota, Enmegahbowh. He spent many years preaching the gospel which seemed to him to fall on deaf ears in the Ojibwe communities of northern Minnesota. Finally, he gave up and boarded a boat at Duluth on Lake Superior to return home to Ontario. The boat set out for Canada, only to be blown back into port by unseasonable winds. Twice more he boarded boats to return to Canada, and was blown back to Duluth. He finally got off the boat for good, perhaps shaking his fist at a God who would get Jonah where God wanted Jonah to be, and Enmegahbowh where God wanted Enmegahbowh to be. His wife and several children died because of the adversity of the place, and yet he stayed. He stayed and became true to his name, “The One Who Stands Before his People,” and for decades was a faithful deacon and priest serving as “archdeacon” of this vast and then trackless wilderness with Episcopal missions scattered over 40,000 square miles. Faithful in adversity.

I think of the women who knew they were called by God to be priests, some for decades, who didn’t give up on the Church. I think of the many gay men and lesbians who suffered horrendous discrimination and yet stayed with the Episcopal Church despite being used as the “poster children” in ideological and theological battles over which they had no control, not even a voice. I think of Bishop Gene Robinson, being treated so abysmally by so many, (including the Archbishop of Canterbury) being pilloried, made fun of, and yet, faithful in all things remains sweet of spirit and thoroughly committed to the Episcopal Church. Faithful in adversity.

The present situation in the Episcopal Church has a eerie and familiar pattern. Look at the Churches which are leaving the Episcopal Church are, largely, affluent and overwhelmingly white. When I have a tooth ache, I go to the dentist. Likewise, most laity who read or hear about some controversy in the church, ask their rector. I find it appalling that some bishops and priests would advocate leaving The Episcopal Church imagining themselves to be protectors of orthodoxy. Most of the lay people who are in the schismatic churches have been victims of the anger and fear of clergy and bishops uncomfortable with change, which is inevitable. The claim of Biblical authority many of them use to justify leaving the Episcopal Church ring false, and I grieve that some really fine theologically conservative lay people have been led by short sighted priests and bishops to take a step not only not necessary, but terribly disruptive and hurtful for all involved. We Anglicans have always been able to live in the tension of theological disagreement, because we agree on the essentials.

I think that the model of the faithful and often overlooked, underfunded and even forgotten Indian Episcopalians in this land of the northern lights could not be a greater contrast than those clergy pulling their affluent, white congregations out of the Episcopal Church. Years ago, at the organizing gathering of the Episcopal Synod of American in Ft. Worth, Texas, I was an observer sent by then Presiding Bishop Ed Browning. Sitting in the visitor’s gallery were about a dozen purple clad men with large pectoral crosses. I asked who they were. I was told that they were previously schismatic Episcopal clergy who broke off from other bodies of schismatic to form their own dioceses. Some had diocese with two or there parishes. Some had only a hundred or so communicants in the diocese over which they presided. How clear it became. It wasn’t about orthodoxy, it wasn’t about women’s ordination or sexual orientation and inclusion- it was about power for those who led their flocks out of the Episcopal Church. I wonder how many of them are still “bishops?” The present scramble by African and South American Primates to “colonize” the affluent conservative American parishes under the leadership of hurt and angry priests is a kind of reverse colonialism. This sort of activity perhaps could be expected in a post colonial, fruit basket upset 21st Century Anglicanism. These “poaching” Primates are being challenged at home by Pentacostalism, Islam and consumerism. They have societal problems that stagger the imagination. One can understand their desire to tap into the wealth of these disgruntled American parishes. But whatever happened to faithfulness?

The Rev. Dr. Howard Anderson is Warden and President of the Cathedral College at Washington National Cathedral. He was a long time General Convention deputy and most importantly, is grandfather to a five year old theologian, Will.

By Kit Carlson

For many years, I was a serious Anglophile. I loved being an Episcopalian, because we talked like Thomas Cranmer every single week (at least until the 1979 revision of the Prayer Book). I was obsessed with the Masterpiece Theater series on Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, and the connection between my local church and the its convulsive beginnings in the 15th Century was really powerful for me.

As I got older, I drifted in and out of churches. As a young 20-ish woman, there was nothing that spoke to me in most Sunday services. But on All Saints Sunday 1986, my husband and I wandered into Our Saviour Episcopal Church, just next to the Beltway in suburban Maryland. We had relocated to Silver Spring, I was pregnant with our first child, and I wanted to find a church we could settle down in as a family.

Our Saviour had a pipe organ. And a choir, one that needed a soprano. It worked for me. We joined.

Shortly after, something wonderful began to happen at Our Saviour. It had been founded in the late '50s as a "white flight" church, spun off from another Our Saviour in the Brookland area of Washington when things began to "change" in the neighborhood. But as the 1980s turned into the 1990s, Our Saviour-Hillandale also began to change. Folks started showing up, immigrants from Africa and China and India and the Caribbean.

It was another connection to British history, its history of empire and of conquest. For if once the sun never set on the British Empire, then it also never set on Britain's national church. There were Anglicans all over the world and as they moved to the United States, many of them made their home at Our Saviour.

Harwood Bowman, the founding rector, had planned for Our Saviour to be built next to the Capitol Beltway, then only a dream, because he wanted folks to come to Our Saviour from "all over." Folks were definitely coming to the church from "all over," from places Harwood had never imagined they might come, bringing their culture and customs with them. It became a Pentecostal church ... not the kind that rolls around in the ecstasy of the Spirit, but a church that looks like the feast of Pentecost, when each person heard the good news proclaimed to them in their own language.

Through these changes, Our Saviour flexed, painfully at times, but accommodated the shifts. When I worshipped there last month, for the first time in years (and for the last time for me as a resident of Maryland ...), it was very different and yet the same.

The congregation was more than three-quarters black. But not because the whites fled ... the old-timers were still filling the same pews. The parish had just grown and changed along with them.

The Mother's Union, another exported British tradition, had turned out to make a presentation. In their matching blue dresses and white hats, they claimed their pride of place as a force of feminine leadership. The sermon -- preached by the new young assistant, who is also the parish's pastor to its Latino congregation -- was free-form, delivered from the aisle, and powerful. The music was traditional (with ALL the verses of St. Patrick's Breastplate) and pietistic, with three hymns from LEVAS at communion, sung with great volume and joy. Some people waved their hands in the air. Others silently bowed their heads in prayer. It was my church. It was a homecoming.

Our Saviour is not a perfect parish. It has had its dissensions, its debates, its struggles over what is going on in the wider Communion and what is going on among its own members. But it is a community that has held together through those dissensions and struggles. It is Anglican in all the best definitions of that word ... international, comprehensive, thoughtful, traditional, yet open to the leading of the Spirit.

I am proud to have called it my church home. It has made me the Anglican I am today.

The Rev. Kit Carlson, is the rector of All Saints Episcopal Church in East Lansing, Mich. She was associate and interim rector at the Church of the Ascension in Gaithersburg, Md., for seven years.

By Richard E. Helmer

The rancor in the Anglican blogosphere has reached yet another new height as lawsuits pending in the Episcopal Church took a turn in recent weeks against dissenting parishes, and a flurry of elections overseas have resulted in the naming of over a dozen new bishops for networks in North America – an apparently major step in the establishment of an alternative or even replacement Anglican Province in North America.

It seems that indeed these days everyone has something to be offended about – to justify spitting out a harsh word or two about the situation in the greater Church. For instance, Mark Harris took it in the teeth from comments over at Preludium this week when he wrote about "The Gang of Thirteen, or so.” In a bit of a temper, I delivered a scathing brand of humor over the same situation, and judging by the comments in response, much to the delight of those on this side of the questions at hand in the Communion.

But back at home, I’ve had a particularly exhausting yet spiritually fulfilling week of pastoral extremes as a parish priest: from the beautiful baptism of a child born with a dangerous heart-valve condition, to the dignified death of one of the pillars of our congregation – a truly remarkable Christian and human being.

Most of this would be considered garden-variety stuff by any parochial Christian, were it not that this happens in the context of one of the most so-called liberal dioceses in the Episcopal Church, the Diocese of California. And the church I serve is in Marin County, home of the crème de la crème in the liberal mecca of the San Francisco Bay Area, where the most conservative among us put liberalism in the rest of the country to shame. We are not simply on the edge geographically and politically, we are on the edge theologically as a local church, and (too) often proud of ourselves for this.

We embrace many of the belief and practices that have made the Episcopal Church a pariah in some eyes, and aroused the ire of primates in the Global South and their more vociferous allies in this country. And we’ve indeed thrown our own barbs into the mix of rancor so prominent in the life of the greater Church these days. Certainly I have.

But after a week of pressing pastoral duties, of reflecting about life on the edge, of death and family, of new life and new hope in the name of the Trinity, I find all the rancor in the Anglican Communion right now suddenly strange and petty. Arguments over bishops elected in faraway places seem to bear little or no relevance to Christian life on the edge here, and life with Jesus on the ground where we find ourselves.

At the end of the day, it strikes me that there is merit to each side claiming offense from the other. There are things The Episcopal Church has handled well, others quite poorly. The same goes for the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Primates. The same for all our bishops and leaders. And all of us bloggers have our own limited perspective, our own projections to cope with, and our own motes to see past.

For this reason, I set aside almost all my claims to taking offense. But to my more conservative sisters and brothers (and there are many), there is one accusation I do take exception to. That is the notion, implied or explicitly articulated, that our ecclesiastical and theological position here somehow divorces us from the grace of God, from the hand of God’s blessing. This week in engaging some very liberal and some more conservative members of the parish I serve, I have witnessed the abundance of God’s grace calling us together into community, blessing our individual and corporate life, and empowering all of us together for ministry. I have seen, in human fragility uncovered by vulnerability and death, hearts that are filled to overflowing with the gracious love of God in Christ Jesus, endowed with the awesome fruits of the Spirit, and not at all dependent on divisive points of theology or doctrine.

I dare to claim based on what I see and witness that we are not wayward heretics destined for Hell, but Christians struggling together and lovingly with the tangible questions of life and death in relationship with our faith as disciples of Jesus Christ. Once the dust settles and the skirmishes over jurisdiction, power, provincial autonomy, covenant, property, and the episcopacy settle, many of us will re-open our eyes and find ourselves more truly in this position common to Christians across the ages: called to live in our own gifted ways into the incarnate Word, the foundation of our faith, touching the lives most immediately near us with the hope of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

And that simply has little regard for our divisions, and radically less for our erstwhile claims to superiority or special consideration for God’s grace.

The Rev. Richard E. Helmer is rector of Church of Our Saviour, Mill Valley, Calif. His sermons have been published at Sermons that Work, and he blogs regularly about spirituality, ministry, Anglicanism, and church politics at Caught by the Light.

The Unition of Black Episcopalians wraps up its annual meeting in Houston today. Before the conference began, Carol Barnwell, director of communications for the Diocese of Texas interviewed outgoing UBE president the Rev. Canon Nelson Pinder (see below.) The Houston Chronicle covered Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori's sermon at the opening Eucharist, and Betty Conrad Adam followed daily developments on her blog: The Magdalene mystique.

By Carol Barnwell

The Rev. Canon Nelson Pinder, outgoing president of the Union of Black Episcopalians, believes the organization has work to do. “We have profound influence,” he said in an interview during the UBE’s annual conference, held in Houston, Texas, July 2-6. Pinder credits the UBE assistance in the adoption of many General Convention resolutions on human rights as well as women’s ordination. “We helped get women ordained,” he said. “Barbara Harris is the first Anglican woman bishop and she is a UBE member!”

Five women bishops was honored at the conference’s banquet, Thursday evening, celebrating 30 years of women’s ordination, including Harris, along with Bishops Dena Harrison of Texas, Carol Gallagher of Newark, Gayle Harris of Massachusetts and Bavi “Nedi” Rivera of Olympia.

Pinder described the 1000 member UBE as having a multigenerational ministry. It is also multicultural, he said, with people from the Caribbean, Central and South America, the United States and Africa. “We speak English, French, Spanish and many other languages,” Pinder explained.

A retired priest from Florida, Pinder said his vision for UBE has been to “stay spiritual” but he is not afraid to address the hard issues of money. “We need to get to a financial place where we can operate in a healthy manner.

He expects this conference to consider reshaping the UBE and important partnerships with the historical Black Voorhees College in South Carolina and the Diocese of Honduras.

“Any company goes through review and revisions from time to time to find out where they are. We need to see where we are, who we are, that’s part of the necessary retooling,” Pinder said.

Pinder also expects the UBE to discuss issues within the Anglican Communion at their business meeting on Thursday and indeed, House of Deputies President Bonnie Anderson encouraged the group to make their voice heard, “whatever your position,” during her remarks to the group on Tuesday. While the UBE has no official position on the issues, Pinder said he personally believes African bishops are wrong to cross boundaries. “Until a family can have a good fight, we don’t need referees,” he said.

Pinder hopes the UBE will help more people of color get into places of power in the Church where the money is being spent. I want a structure where any kid can see the possibility of being anything [he/she] wants to be all the way to bishop, whether they are Black, female or speak Spanish,” he said.

He said the group chose Houston for their annual gathering because he likes to move the “big event” around the country to be visible, to support local Black congregations and let them know they are not alone.

Bishop Don Wimberly was delighted to welcome the UBE to the Diocese of Texas. “Although we don’t have many Black clergy,” he said, “it is part of our ongoing vision to improve that situation and further reflect the multicultural community in which we live and minister.” Wimberly supported the conference with a $20,000 grant and members of the local John Epps Chapter of the UBE hosted the conference, held at the Hilton Americas in downtown Houston.

While Sunday’s are the most segregated time of the week, Pinder supports neighborhood churches. “Church, to me, was a training ground [in leadership] … a place to get community news,” he said. And while he believes people should worship where they are comfortable, he believes churches should strive to have multicultural staffs and to meet the neighborhood where they exist.

“The Episcopal Church offers the Black community an exercise in spirituality, an exercise in intellectualism, an exercise in the ability to be a community leader and an exercise in how to serve people,” Pinder said. He admits that recruitment of Blacks for ordained ministry is difficult and said salary is an issue. “A priest brings vision to the people. The people are asked to support that vision through prayer, financially and with their works. Our money belongs to God. It’s the best deal in town,” he said. “Give me 10 percent and you can keep 90 percent. Even the government supports that!”

Leadership development is a key piece for the UBE, which was founded in 1968, Pinder said. “We are a volunteer organization and we need about $125,000 to hire a staff and set up an office. We are gaining technical sense throughout consultations with Voorhees but right now I have a computer and phone at home and one volunteer to keep up with the work,” he said.

Although we are past segregation, Pinder said, “Racism is still with us. We have to deal with it … We are the action group. We can call the Church to be accountable.”

Carol E. Barnwell, communications director of the Episcopal Diocese of Texas, is an award winning photographer who writes and edits a monthly newspaper for the diocese's 84,000 plus members. She has served on the press teams of four General Conventions and the 1988 Lambeth Conference, and has covered stories in England, Central America, Africa and Haiti.

By Jennifer McKenzie

This morning at 11:15, a band of about 50 faithful men, women, and children gathered in a borrowed upper room – a loft, to celebrate the Feast of Pentecost. Greeting us as we entered the room was vestry member Dail Turner who was handing out nametags and service bulletins from behind a folding table set just inside the door at the top of the stairs. He in turn introduced us to Bill Fetsch, the senior warden. Both wore generous smiles and extended their hands enthusiastically for a sincere handshake.

“Welcome to the Party!” came the greeting from The Rev. Michael Pipkin as he appeared seemingly from nowhere out of the crowd. “It’s good to see you here. Thanks for coming.” The ‘party’ is the regular Sunday gathering of the members of The Falls Church – Episcopal, a remnant of former members of the several-hundred-member break-away church now affiliated with CANA, who have placed themselves under the authority of Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria. This smaller group is made up of the approximately 10% from the original church who voted to remain in the Episcopal Church plus newcomers and occasional visitors who come for a Sunday or two to give visible support to the gathered church. They are meeting in the loft at the Falls Church Presbyterian, generously supported by that congregation and their pastor, The Rev. Dr. Thomas Schmid, who says, “We are so happy to have them here with us.”

The service was a celebration of the Eucharist with special prayers for Pentecost, the day remembered for the occasion of the followers of Jesus being empowered by the Holy Spirit 50 days after Jesus’ Resurrection. In his sermon, The Rev. Pipkin explained how like so many, this holy day was taken from a Jewish festival commanded by God through Moses – in this case, the Festival of Weeks. The Jewish tradition is one where, at the beginning of the harvest, the ‘first fruits’ are given as a thank offering, waved by the high priest before God. In other words, The Rev. Pipkin said, the offering of thanks is made ‘not knowing what the rest of the growing season will be like.’ He suggested that making such an offering in our day would be akin to paying taxes on January 1st of the year in advance of securing our income for that year – a practice that would probably be fraught with anxiety and fear. But, he reminded the congregation as he had been told in his youth, “anxiety and fear are not of God.” Instead, he suggested, just like in the Pentecost story in the Gospel reading from John appointed for this day, Jesus approaches us saying “Peace be with you…in all our anxiety about what will happen next, of not knowing what the next steps will be, God tells us to not fear.”

Not knowing what will happened next is the present reality for this congregation as they strive to stay “centered on the hopeful promises of Jesus Christ, love for one another and [offer] service to the community” as printed on the cover of their newly produced welcome flyer. Admittedly, keeping such a focus can be a challenge when court battles are waging. Parishioner Lee Roussel noted this challenge – she works in a government office with three members of the CANA group – and she believes that “this [property dispute] will only be really settled out of court.” “We have to keep the relationships open with the folks across the street,” she said, “if we ever hope to resolve our differences.” For Jesse Thackrey, a decades-long member of The Falls Church, this day has been particularly poignant. Thackrey was senior warden at the time The Rev. John Yates was called as rector of The Falls Church. As he led the congregation out of the Episcopal church, Mrs. Thackrey became deeply troubled and felt a level of responsibility for the way things had changed since his arrival several years ago. She had really hoped that those who wanted to remain in the Episcopal Church would be allowed to continue worshipping in the historic church building on the property. While she still wistfully remembers that desire, her outlook has changed. “I’ve learned that the church is about the people coming together to worship God. It’s not about a particular building.” She looked up from her wheelchair and smiled, a twinkle in her moist eyes, “I haven’t been this happy in church for a really long time.”

The Rev. Jennier McKenzie recently accepted a call to be associate rector for evangelism, mission/outreach, and adult discipleship at Christ Church, Alexandria, Virginia. She keeps the blog The Reverend Mother.

Last week, the Rev. Liz Zivanov suggested that the Church be careful about installing young priests in positions that call for experience beyond their years. The Rev. Andrew T. Gerns, who has been ordained for half of his 50 years, has a few thoughts on the matter.

By Andrew T. Gerns

When I was a brand-new seminarian, I was sent from New York to Easton, Pennsylvania, one weekend in January to preach a sermon on Theological Education Sunday. If General Seminary raised any money that day, it certainly wasn’t my fault because while I came out here full of enthusiasm and big ideas, it was also before my first unit of CPE and well before my first homiletics class. What came out had to be in the running for The World’s Worst Sermon Award for 1980.

Twenty-two years later, I became Rector of that very same parish, in no small part because no one, and I do mean no one, remembered me or that sermon. From what I can tell, though, they seemed to have lived through the experience.

I knew I wanted to be a priest since sometime in my early teens, and while I noodled around with the idea of law or art school, I basically drove towards that goal with a certain relentlessness. The priest in my home parish had me do all kinds of kooky things to either test me or talk me out of it, like serving on parish, deanery and diocesan committees, working summers in urban day camps and even as a sexton. He made me join the Altar Guild and when I went away to college scolded me for missing church.

When I started out, the ordination canons were written for people just like me, and everyone seemed to come to the conclusion all at once that it was a bad idea. Some clergy told me that I should go out after college and get a job and experience “real life” before entering the process. Some people said three years was enough while others said five or eight. In my seminary class, which was one of the largest GTS saw until then, there were only three of us who came straight from college. They all reported to me that they had been given the same advice.

I could be wrong about this, but I think that when I became a postulant in 1979, I would be the last person in the Diocese of Connecticut to be given that status at age twenty-one for another eighteen years. In fact, I was told that my being accepted as postulant was an exception to a brand new policy that required a minimum of three years after college (essentially 25 years of age) before entry into the process. I was given a pass because I worked full time while being a full time student to pay for my education at a private liberal arts college. This, they supposed, gave me sufficient “life experience.”

Truthfully, it probably didn’t. When I was sent to my first parish, I was still 24, not-long married and with a one year old son. In other words, I didn’t know doodly about very much. I just thought I did. But I did not miss the ironic fact that people were calling me “Father” and I was young enough to be their kid or their grand-kid.

Now the truth is that between then and now, I did some really cool things—campus ministry, work in soup kitchens, community ministries, classes, camping trips and youth groups and so much more! I also did some really dumb things. There were times when I was arrogant and all-knowing and had to be cut down to size. I needed to grow up. I have crashed and burned, and at times it has been ugly. The important part was not that crashing and burning occurred, but what we—the congregations and I—have done with that experience that mattered.

As a person who has served on Commissions on Ministry, and now serves on a Standing Committee, the questions and challenges around the ordination of young adults in their mid-twenties is very alive to me. Since there are fairly few of us my age who came up that way, people may have forgotten what it is like.

Besides the obvious fact that I have accrued a quarter century of pastoral experience while I am still young enough to use it, there is a far more important truth about my journey.
In the last twenty-five years I have been formed as a priest, for sure, but I have also been formed as a person and as a Christian in the Church. The Church that formed me was not some rarified, special environment, but was the Church of ordinary parishes and missions that struggled with everyday problems of life, meaning, and how to follow Jesus every day. These communities understood, at least implicitly, that part of their vocation was to aide in the formation of young priests.

It certainly helped to be raised up in a Diocese that took the formation of new clergy very seriously and had the resources to do it well. At the time, Connecticut supervised their new ordinands through a CPE program supervised by the deployment officer. My second unit of Basic CPE was also my first year of ordained life. My second and third years were spent learning about organizational development and leadership skills. The ideal was the traditional two-year curacy, but it did not work out that way in my case where I ended flying solo or close to it. I stood in awe of the experiences of the people in my group who came to the priesthood from other careers and vocations, but we were all new together.

Most of all, it was the people in the parishes who formed me most. It was the Lebanese matriarch of a large extended family or the lonely elderly I visited who taught me the meaning of pastoral care and the ministry of presence. It was the recovering alcoholic who quietly shepherded the AA meeting in the parish hall who taught the meaning of addictions and recovery. It was choirs, altar guilds, sacristy rats and people who came every day to church even if no one else did who taught me the everyday importance of liturgy. Sometimes a layperson would gently pull me aside and make a suggestion. Sometimes someone would chew me out. Sometimes I would sit with another ordained person and work through the victories and the set-backs—including the ones of my own making.

To assume that one needs to live “real life” before becoming ordained is to assume that ordained ministry is not real life. Over and over again, I had to relearn what I had been taught in the contexts of the real life in front of me. The really important mementoes of every parish I ever served are not my office, but are the ones I carry with me wherever I go. Who I am and how I minister is largely a gift of God mediated through ordinary people in ordinary ways over many years.

The truth is that no one comes out of ordination fully formed and ready to go. All of us have tons to learn and we will never know it all. We will make mistakes, and some of them will deeply hurt people.

Age is not a predictor of competence or even of maturity. Neither does age and life experience necessarily mean that a new priest, however old, won’t do serious harm to persons or parishes. I have seen older new priests mess up just as badly—or worse—than younger new priests. I have seen priests, old and young, work out their insecurities in the pulpit before helpless congregations. I have seen clergy of every age experience crises of faith and the stresses of maturing right before our very eyes. Certainly, we can’t think that we can prevent the consequences of ordaining human beings to holy orders simply by setting higher age limits?

We must be careful of a kind of medical model of ministry that assumes that people and churches are essentially broken and need to be diagnosed and fixed by experts. As a clinical chaplain, I have come to view the sickness-model of pastoral care and counseling is of very limited, short-term value to be saved for emergencies. I have learned to balance what experts tell me with the actual experience of being with people. Just as with the formation of physicians, a fully formed priest is not only technically competent and conversant in their subjects, but have learned their craft by listening to the people they care for.

I learned this truth because I was formed, shaped for ministry, as a priest in the church. Throughout my whole adult life, through congregations that took on that delicate task of forming the clergy they have called to be their priests, I have been taught how to be both a priest and a person. Again, age is no predictor. It might even happen after we turn 50. I have a sneaking suspicion that my congregation is forming me right now. They and I might not know it, but it happens anyway.

Do I think I am a better priest after experiencing everything adult life can bring? You bet. But for me, experiencing all those things in the context of parish communities as a priest has been a lesson in how God shows up in real life and works through all of life to make us the people God made us to be.

The Rev. Andrew Gerns is the rector of Trinity Church, Easton, Pa., chair of the Evangelism Commission of the Diocese of Bethlehem and an avid Red Sox fan. Andrew is celebrating fifty years of living and twenty-five years of ordained living this year. He keeps the blog Andrew Plus.

On View: Station IX : Jesus Nailed to the Cross by Kathrin Burleson, as seen in The Soul's Journey at Episcopal Church and Visual Arts

By Elizabeth Zivanov

I’ve found myself in the line of fire more than once for suggesting that those who feel called to Holy Orders should not go directly to seminary after graduating from college. My rationale has been that those who follow this track do not have the life experience necessary to pastor a parish. Of course, I’ve been challenged and even called a few names because of this approach, so I continue to reflect on my reasons for being so stubborn about this.

I am speaking in generalizations based on my own experience and based on anecdotal evidence. I do think this topic needs to be seriously addressed at many levels by dioceses and the national church. A study on this topic would probably be a fine thesis or term project for some earnest seminarian.

Fundamentally, there is a push across the board for young clergy in the Episcopal Church. It’s an image thing; it’s an assumption; it’s a cry for hope for the future of the church: young clergy will attract young people and we all want more of them! Or perhaps it’s because we need a visual symbol of hope for the Church, and 20-somethings in alb and stole provide one.

When I think of the needs of a pastoral or family-sized parish, there is, typically, a strong expectation that the rector or vicar is capable of handling just about anything that comes her way or, if not, then she at least knows her limits and will make a referral. (For this piece, I’ll use feminine pronouns as generic.) In fact, it’s thought by many (although erroneously) that once ordained a priest, the new cleric can easily live into this expectation of Mother Knows Best and can take care of everything and everyone. Young clerics sometimes actually buy into that identity.

So we have a 25-year-old with a seminary degree, maybe 10 weeks of basic Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE), and some part-time field education work who is now faced with many levels of parish dynamics, deaths, marriage difficulties, drug problems, local politics, unruly children and adults, hidden agendas, triangulation, skeletons in the closets, the onset of terminal illnesses, and all the other problems that arise in parish communities. Can a 25-year-old with no practical life experience and no in-depth supervised training adequately handle being the person to whom Christians turn for their emotional, psychological, and spiritual health? Do three years of seminary provide adequate preparation?

Let’s compare this to the training of medical doctors. They have an undergraduate education and three years of medical school. So far, this is training similar to our seminarians. When they graduate, they are awarded an M.D. and are addressed as Doctor Whomever. When our seminarians graduate, they are awarded an MDiv and are ordained, thereafter being addressed as The Rev. Whomever. But once these degrees and titles are bestowed, there is a sudden shift in training and expectations. Doctors must endure another 3-7 years of highly supervised internship and residency; clergy are often assigned to parishes as vicars or to other parishes as assistants, and with questionable supervision. In some dioceses, they are assigned as vicar or rector immediately upon their ordination just because of the paucity of available ordained clergy. In relatively rare cases, these newly ordained clergy are assigned as curates, sometimes with the expectation that they will receive additional training and mentoring from the rector to whom they report. Sometimes that happens, sometimes it doesn’t. But there is no consistency of training for newly ordained clerics in the Episcopal Church.

By the time doctors are able to go into private practice, they are in their late 20s or early 30s with extensive on-the-job training. The newly ordained cleric can ostensibly find herself as a vicar or rector as early as 24 years old.

Both medical and clerical professions muck around deeply in the lives of individuals – one physically, the other spiritually and emotionally. One is trained to know the professional limits of their training and skill; the other is not always trained to know these limits, thus using “skills” that they do not have and often causing more harm than good.

There is a perception that continues to exist on the part of parishioners, however, that clergy are trained to take care of many different personal and spiritual situations and crises that arise. They are not. They might have received a counseling class or two in seminary, but certainly nothing extensive that includes close and ongoing supervision over a sufficient period of time. Seminaries do not provide in-depth opportunities for learning and developing the soft skills, management skills, and group dynamics skills necessary for any leader of a group of diverse personalities.

A national parish clinical pastoral education program that is required of all seminary graduates could provide us with clergy who have had quality, reality-based, supervised training in parish ministry. Of course, this program would require funding from the national church and local dioceses; the willingness to commit such funding is an indication of the importance that we place on adequately training clergy for parish work. It might even be a canonical requirement that all seminary graduates experience parish CPE in the same depth and intensity as they do their hospital CPE. Instead of 10 weeks, though, it might be 9-12 months.

Or a potentially less popular option is to require a minimum age for those attending seminary – maybe 27 or higher to ensure that they have had at least some kind of real-life experience, and that there is a better chance that they have matured a little more than a 23- or 24-year old.

But to graduate and ordain young people who are not prepared for the enormous expectations of parish clergy is to put both young clergy and parishioners seriously at risk for their spiritual and emotional lives and to risk the systemic health of our parish communities.

The Rev. Liz Zivanov is rector of St. Clement's Church in Honolulu, Hawai`i, a deputy to General Convention 2006, and president of the Standing Committee of the Diocese of Hawai`i. Her sabbatical adventures can be followed on Stopping By Woods.

By Nick Knisely

At certain point, when you get involved in enough diocesan and national church programs, you become a connoisseur of meetings and agendas.

Lately, as costs have risen and free time decreased, church meetings and conventions have been shortened by a few days. The result is that meetings start early in the day, and business sessions run well into the night. (I guess if you’re spending all that money to bring people to a meeting, you want to make sure that it’s going be produce a lot of material.)

So I was shocked when I attended my first meeting of the ecumenical dialogue between the Episcopal Church and the Moravian Church. At the time, I was a priest of the Diocese of Bethlehem, living in a city founded by Moravians, and one in which they still maintain a strong presence. I had been asked to participate in this dialogue with the idea that my special duty would be to coordinate local initiatives in the Diocese of Bethlehem between Episcopal and Moravian congregations. I had prepared for this by bringing along a copy of the master diocesan calendar, parish calendars, notebooks full of information and as many sheets of paper as I could cram into my suitcase.

But the meeting that I attended was very different than the one I expected. We spent pretty much the entire first day “checking in” with each other about what had been going on in our lives. I’m familiar with “checking in” as a process tool, and have experienced it before in Episcopal Church settings; but generally when we do it, it’s over in about half an hour and we get down to the business at hand. But here, the business at hand *was* the checking in. We adjourned late in the afternoon and drove across town to the home of one of our hosts, and spent the evening sitting in lawn chairs, eating chicken and potato salad and watching the sun set. The whole evening consisted of telling stories about our families and our friends, and discovering with delight how many of the latter we all had in common.

By the second day of the three day meeting I had the sense that something very different was happening and that this meeting had a radically different agenda than other church meetings that I had attended. I finally asked some of the folks about it. (I think I wondered out loud if we were going to get any work done, or something nearly as polite.)

My hosts explained to me that the Moravian Church was not a confessional church - it was, like the Episcopal Church can sometime be, an intentionally relational church. The structures of the church are best understood as serving to builds the bonds of common love between the members of the Church which then show forth the love of Christ to the larger world. The Moravians took this part seriously, and unlike the Episcopal Church with its need to generate voluminous reports, position papers and long action lists, they seem to focus on leaving a meeting with better relationships than they had arrived with.

There’s a real and valuable payoff for them in this. The Moravian Church is struggling with the same issues that the Episcopal Church is at the moment. They have groups and congregations breaking away over the same concerns, and they have to manage the same sorts of resolutions that we do at our national meetings. But the tenor of their conversation is remarkably different than ours. They simply won’t fight and insult each other in the manner in which some Episcopalians revel. They’ve grown up with each other, often attending the same schools, and their families have been connected with each other for years. More importantly they have done the basic spade work of maintaining their friendships and their community in a way we Episcopalians have neglected, and we can see their benefit and our loss. Their strong personal relationships and deep ties to each other have inoculated them to the rancor and bile that we are experiencing.

I may be the one person in the Episcopal Church who would consider making General Convention a longer and larger event if it meant there would be more time for shared dinners with each other, for chance conversations in the hallways and for more opportunities to renew friendships. I feel the same way about diocesan events and other national events as well. I may get frustrated by not accomplishing as many tasks as we might have, but if I can keep my sense that the building of relationships is at least as important as taking positions, then I think I’ll be able to quiet my inner work-a-holic. And if we could do this, I truly believe our conversations would be radically different - and that people might actually know our Lord because of the love we have for each other.

Bless the Moravian Church, and their missional focus on being the yeast for the dough, that has taught me this truth.

The Very Rev. W. Nicholas Knisely is Dean of Trinity Cathedral in Phoenix Ariz., and chair of the Standing Commission on Episcopal Church Communication. His blog is Entangled States.

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By Will Scott

About six months ago, I moved to California to start a new job at Grace Cathedral. We are a large, vibrant and growing church in the midst of what often gets described as a “hyper secularized” environment. But having grown up in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia (not quite the Bible Belt, but pretty darn close), I was formed in the faith by two interconnected communities: a small parish church and a large summer camp in the mountains. I have learned there are many differences between the East and the West Coasts of the United States. I have also found that the Church’s mission of reconciling the world to Christ remains the same in San Francisco, California and in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.

The small church where I grew up was on the edge of town and was dwarfed by much larger churches. However, St. Paul’s on-the-Hill was unlike any other place in my life because it connected little me with the whole world. Our parish priest at that time was passionate about Jesus and was a champion for global human rights. People of all ages were taught about our faith’s moral obligation to stand up against injustice and violence. There in that tiny parish church, I learned about the anti-apartheid movement going on in South Africa and the issues facing the Middle East. Few other places in my relatively rural community talked as regularly and sincerely about global matters.

This small church taught me that faith communities help build bridges across great differences, whatever their size or location. Even on a global scale, our small faith communities can have a significant impact. I recently read a posting on a social networking website in which a young man who described himself as an "emergent Christian," said he was having a difficult time finding ways to “do the gospel.” My hunch is that if Episcopal Churches of all sizes and locations were more intentional about communicating our commitment to the Millennium Development Goals and other global causes, this young person and many others would have no problem finding ways to express their faith. “Doing the gospel” can include helping the church and its members become more energy efficient, supporting fair trade, raising funds to fight HIV/AIDS, volunteering with Habitat for Humanity, or attending a rally or vigil. The Episcopal Church Communications office has put together an excellent website sharing ideas, resources and information about “doing the gospel” called Global Good.

I will never forget one closing ceremony at my large Episcopal summer camp, Shrine Mont. Amidst campers crying about leaving behind their new friends, one of the counselors took the whole group out of the chapel and down to a large pond. She asked all of us to circle around that body of water. Picking up a pebble, she tossed it in the water and we all watched the lone ripple on the surface created by her pebble. The counselor talked about how this was like one person speaking up on behalf of God’s love and peace in the world: it made one beautiful ripple. Then she invited all of us to pick up pebbles and throw them in the water. As we watched the overlapping ripples, each with a different point of origin, moving together across the pond, my counselor told us that this was what happens when we all speak up on behalf of God’s justice and peace. Together, we create many ripples and have much effect.

What we as a church do and say about global matters in our rural parishes, suburban churches, and summer camps is as important as what goes on in big and urban places. Responding to injustice and violence is about living God’s mission and practicing our faith. Addressing the hopes, needs and concerns of the world is not an option — it is Christ’s call to each of us.

The Rev. Will Scott is associate pastor at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. He blogs occasionally at Yearns and Groans.

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By Deryl Davis

Can human beings live with a healing spirit that makes room for the “outsider” in our midst? That was the central question posed by Washington National Cathedral Dean Samuel T. Lloyd III in his plenary address on reconciliation at this week’s Church for the 21st Century conference. Citing examples of division in American society and within Christian traditions, including the Episcopal Church, Lloyd pointed to Jesus’ acts of inclusion and ministry of reconciliation as models for a world “crying out for the spirit of healing, where there is room for the stranger, and plenty of room at the banquet table.”

Lloyd asserted that it was important to recognize that forgiveness and reconciliation have not been part of every religious tradition, and he recalled philosopher Hannah Arendt’s contention that it was Jesus who introduced forgiveness and reconciliation into world affairs. Lloyd told conference participants that the clearest call to such reconciliation is found in Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians: So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation (II Corinthians 5:17-18, New Revised Standard Version). Lloyd asserted that Paul was teaching two specific things: first, that reconciliation is an act of God working through us, that we cannot begin it ourselves; and second, that God has given us reconciliation as a specific Christian ministry within and beyond the church.

Lloyd told participants that reconciliation is not “a strategy or problem-solving approach, but a spirituality of how God has accepted us back again and again.” He cited theologian Gregory Jones, who has written that reconciliation is something we discover, a set of practices that arise out of our relationship with God.

Recent history offers remarkable stories of reconciliation, Lloyd noted, in which people of faith were able to love the “other” even when the other had badly wounded them. The Amish community’s ability to love and show concern for the wife of the man who killed five Amish girls in the town of Paradise, Pennsylvania last year was one example; another was the remarkable work of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, headed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, which offered amnesty for crimes committed under apartheid if the offender confessed and asked for forgiveness. Lloyd noted that the model was specifically scriptural.

Importantly, reconciliation does not mean agreement, Lloyd said. “It means struggling to honor and make space for the other in our world and hearts, sometimes to have to walk apart,” but hopefully to find a way to walk together again in the future.

In conclusion, Lloyd asserted that the work of the 21st century church, whatever form it takes, is reconciliation, “honoring the ‘other’ in our churches, our communities, and across the world.” Lloyd said that Christians should be about “building communities where people can be in touch with themselves, even their own sin,” while reaching across boundaries of race, gender, and social and ideological distinctions. “We have an urgent call,” Lloyd said, “in this work which has a truly global dimension.”

Deryl Davis is covering The Church for the 21st Century Conference at Washington National Cathedral for Episcopal Cafe. He will have additional reports next week.

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By Derek Olsen

During my time in and around churches I’ve noticed two general strategies when it comes to stewardship time. The first strategy is outright begging. The clergy and vestry make a pitch for money to keep the lights on, the building heated, and to generally keep the place running. The main motivator here seems to be guilt.

The second strategy is the notion of giving as a Scriptural command/spiritual discipline. We get it from both directions: from one side, Scripture tells us to give our first-fruits to God, ten percent being the suggested donation; on the other, giving is a way of liberating ourselves from bondage to our possessions and engenders a spirit of gratitude towards God and neighbors by redistributing the good things we have received from them. Personally, I like this one better than the first. Still, being a Gen-X/Y guy I always get a little suspicious when some dude stands up and tells me to give to God—but it just happens to be heading for his bank account… The first way seems demeaning, the second—while the message is true—comes across as being self-seeking. Were someone to stand up, tell me to give to God and suggest other ministries who should receive it, I’d probably take the call more seriously…but that won’t help the parish budget, will it? Is there a better way to do this? Is there a way to talk about, to do, stewardship that moves beyond these complications?

I certainly hope so.

During my time in grad school, I’ve kept bread on the table by working in non-profit development—the industry euphemism for fundraising. I’ve written grants, drafted mass mailings, and have spent countless hours glued to various kinds of databases supporting my development colleagues. In that time, I’ve gained an appreciation for some different strategies of fundraising than the usual two that church-folk tend to use. Here are some things to get you thinking about your church’s stewardship campaign—whether you’re putting it together or not.

Effective philanthropy isn’t about asking for money, it’s about linking passions. The man who taught me the business was fond of repeating a line he attributed to Laurence Rockefeller: “In good philanthropy, everybody wins.” To understand this proverb and apply it to the church we need to break it down: first—who’s “everybody”?

The non-profit world tends to talk in terms of three spheres: donors, the organization, and the service population. That is, those who give the money, those who use the money, and those who receive the services. For each of these three to “win,” they all have to be receiving the maximum benefit of the gift. The service population has to receive the full benefit whether that’s having their needs met or having their horizons expanded or stretched in some way. The organization wins when it makes an active contribution to its field whether that’s healing, education, art appreciation or a hundred other possibilities. Donors win when they don’t feel like they’ve been manipulated or extorted. Donors win when they don’t feel like they’ve pitched a shovel full of money into a big black hole. Donors win when they can see the tangible results of investing in their passion.

Because that’s what it’s about: investing in a passion. Good philanthropy happens when an organization provides an opportunity for donors to invest in something that they are passionate about—and to see that they’ve made a difference. Thus, our job in the development business is connecting people with common passions. I learned early on that it’s no use spending staff time and resources to convince someone with a passion for curing the cancer that killed their mother to make a major gift in support of postmodern sculpture, or to extract a gift for healthcare services from someone focused on global warming. It’s not that all of these aren’t worthy causes or that some connection couldn’t eventually be made, rather, it’s about the synergistic effect when passions meet and match to make a difference.

So—how does this connect to the church? In a sense we’ve got an unusual situation because we’re the donors, the organization, and—to a degree—the service population as well. And we need to keep all three pieces in focus. Stewardship is not about the clergy and the vestry against the congregation—though it sometimes feels that way. The clergy and the vestry really aren’t the organization—we all are. Are you owning that and claiming that?

So what is the purpose of the organization—where’s the passion? On one level this question ought to have a very easy answer: To transform its members according to the mind of Christ through worship, education, and action, spurring them to invite the whole world into the Good News of what God has done for us in Christ. But practically—what does this look like on the ground, on your ground? Take a minute to think through these questions:
1. What is your particular local congregation’s passion(s) as it relates to the overall picture sketched above?
2. Can you see the tangible evidence of your congregation’s passions?
3. Can others—both inside and outside the congregation—see that evidence too?
Now—here’s the kicker…
4. In light of these reflections, is this congregation a good investment of time and money for those who want to see those passions change the world around them?

It doesn’t matter if you’re a priest, a vestry member or a regular person in the pew, these are the questions to be thinking about—now. Not in September or October when “stewardship season” is around the corner. They’re the questions to think about now. Is your congregation currently not a good investment? Now’s the time to do something about it! Does it do good work, but it’s still the best-kept secret on the block? Now’s the time to spread the word! When stewardship season rolls around will you find them begging for money again, or inviting investments in an organization that pays spiritual dividends? When the passion is vibrant and alive, when it’s visibly at work changing lives, feeding the poor, comforting the disconsolate, that’s when good philanthropy is happening. When disciples are being formed, when the year of God’s favor is being enacted, that’s when the Gospel is happening.

Derek Olsen is a database programmer and an adjunct professor at Emory’s Candler School of Theology where he teaches in homiletics, liturgics, and New Testament. His reflections on life, liturgical spirituality, and being a Gen-X dad appear at Haligweorc.

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Reminder: At Episcopal Café, we hope to establish an ethic of transparency by requiring all contributors and commentators to make submissions under their real names. For more details see our Feedback Policy.

"In reality, it is the church “homes” of countless loyal Episcopalians, the legacy of countless Episcopalians, past and present, and the spiritual well-being of those who always have found immeasurable comfort in their church homes, that are at issue as well as the nature of TEC and Anglicanism. The strategy at play must be revealed and understood if we are to protect the faithful from having their places of worship, and the assets accumulated by generations of Episcopalians, removed from them and removed from their use in the mission of TEC."

The House of Bishops Task Force on Property Disputes has issued it report.

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Reminder: At Episcopal Café, we hope to establish an ethic of transparency by requiring all contributors and commentators to make submissions under their real names. For more details see our Feedback Policy.

Read more »

By Andrew Gerns

Do you know the old saying: What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander? The ruling handed down by a South Carolina judge in the cases of a breakaway parish versus the Diocese of South Carolina is most certainly sauce for somebody.

Episcopal News Service presents the facts of the matter. But the “takeaway” as editors like to say, is that if you want the Episcopal Church to violate its constitution and canons to advance your agenda, don’t be offended when the offer is refused, and don’t expect civil authorities to back you up.

The significant parts of the South Carolina ruling are these:

• In a hierarchical church such as ours, Diocesan and Episcopal Church canons concerning of membership supersede parochial by-laws.
  
• A judge may determine if a congregation is departing from the "doctrine, discipline and worship" of this church by how the congregation adheres to the constitution and canons of the church. Judge Thomas W. Cooper, Jr., wrote that a "quintessentially religious question is left up to the church authorities" and defined that authority in terms of the constitution and canons of the church.
  
• He said it "constitute(s) a fraud" to take a parish into a new denomination when all of the current members freely chose to enter the existing Church.
  

The judge may have tried to avoid knotty theological questions, but his ruling reiterates a fundamental element of what it means to be the Church. Entering the Church means not only enjoying the style of worship and teaching, but entering into the common life of the whole Church, a life that includes adherence to the Church’s constitution and canons.

If the ruling in South Carolina is embraced by other states, the strategy of those trying to break up the Episcopal Church will collapse under its own weight.

The Anglican Mission in America (an initiative of the Church of Rwanda) and the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (an initiative of the Church of Nigeria) could have built brand new facilities. Had they moved in that direction, they would face only ecclesiastical discipline that could not have been enforced from a church they no longer recognized. They could have left their former dioceses with empty churches, and demonstrated the vitality of their ministry by comparison. Loyal Episcopalians could have complained about invading, interfering Bishops, but not done much about it.

Instead they chose to build on the material resources of the Church they want to leave, and then affected surprise when that Church (and the members who did not vote their way) opposed their efforts.

Why is gaining control of Episcopal Church property so important to the Rwandan and Nigerian initiatives? If simply forming a new denomination were their goal, the task would be relatively simple: incorporate, write up ones own constitution and canons, set out into the free-market of religious ideas and see what develops.

The problem is that it has been tried before with less than stellar results. While it does offer refuge and shelter from the offending mother church, it has serious drawbacks. For one thing, the new church steps outside the Anglican sphere. It may contain many of the outward trappings of prayer book, bishops, and liturgy but the new group has cut itself loose. The other drawback is that striking out alone means that one can do a lot less mission because without shared resources a much greater proportion of what one has is spent just to stay open. A third liability is that groups that define themselves by what they are against, and deal with that by leaving what offends them, have a hard time working with other groups because the troublesome details of right doctrine tend to matter more than the details of common life.

The Rwandan and Nigerian strategies address one of those issues. Instead of going it alone, the former Episcopal parishes that joined the AMiA and CANA become part of an already standing, already legitimatized Anglican Province. While these initiatives have never been explicitly endorsed by the current Archbishop of Canterbury, or the Anglican Consultative Council, they haven’t been denounced either. Hence, they can’t be conclusively refuted when they claim to be an Anglican presence in the United States.

Still, without property, the breakaway parishes would lose visibility, and perhaps some legitimacy in the minds of potential new members. They’d also have far fewer assets, and run the risk of fading from the scene.

I believe that CANA chose Virginia as the place to gain a foothold because it had a significant number of sympathetic congregations which were already acting apart from the Episcopal Church with the size, the money and the people who would support them. I think they also believed that south of the Potomac they were in a legal environment that favored them. Now that is uncertain.

The CANA strategy depends on proving that they are the rightful heirs of the tradition of the denomination, in other words that the Episcopal Church left the parishes not the other way round. It also hangs on the idea that a parish in a structure like ours can unilaterally change the public record of its incorporation, title, deed, etc., and finally that the fiduciary responsibilities of the clergy and lay leaders take second place to their notions of maintaining doctrine and practice. The South Carolina ruling rejects all three of these contentions.

It has not gone unnoticed that these particular suits were initiated by an "orthodox," "reasserting" congregation against Bishop Edward Salmon, who is also considered also to be an "orthodox" "reasserter." The difference is that Bishop Salmon was willing to fulfill his canonical and fiduciary responsibilities and the clergy and lay leaders of the departing church were not.

Theological dissent, in other words, does not entitle you to take what is not yours.

The Rev. Andrew Gerns is the rector of Trinity Church, Easton, Pa. and chair of the Evangelism Commission of the Diocese of Bethlehem. He keeps the blog Andrew Plus.

The Rev. Howard Anderson, Warden and President of the Cathedral College has news of an exciting conference coming up May 10-12:

Church for the 21st Century:
A Gathering to Envision, Encourage and Energize Congregations

Dear Friend:

Join the journey of generous-spirited Christians creating the church for the 21st century. Come join us at Washington National Cathedral to reflect on the direction of the church. Share in creating a time of holy space in worship, music, meals and prayer. Explore key areas including worship, hospitality, discernment, tradition, justice, formation and beauty, drawn from Diana Butler Bass’ latest book Christianity for the Rest of Us.

We are pleased to announce presentations by leading theologians and practitioners including:

Diana Butler Bass, Michael Battle, Marcus Borg, Fred Burnham, Carmen Guerrero, Tony Jones, Samuel Lloyd, Barbara Brown Taylor and Phyllis Tickle.

Conference activities also include: best practices sessions with examples from thriving congregations; a wide variety of community conversation circles for networking; shared meals; and roundtable discussions.

Schedule and Fees: The conference runs from Thursday, May 10 at 2 pm until Saturday, May 12 with the conclusion of the noon Eucharist. The registration fee of $250 includes program costs, Thursday dinner, Friday lunch, Friday “Eucharist meal” and Friday evening reception.

There's more information, and online registration here. A tentative schedule lurks beneath the "continue reading" tab.

Read more »

The Standing Committee of the Diocese of South Carolina plans to reconvene the annual meeting of the diocese to re-elect the Rev. Mark Lawrence as bishop. Lawrence didn't get the necessary consents from the Standing Committees of other dioceses last time around, but it seems likely, though not certain, that this time he will.

Ralph Routon of the Colorado Springs Independent offers this commentary on the case of the Rev. Don Armstrong and Grace Church. An excerpt:

"And people wonder why churches aren't as large or influential as they once were. Especially when a congregation as established and deep-rooted as Grace's can split in such a deplorable manner — with the "breakaway" group seizing control of the church complex and embracing a Nigerian archbishop who believes homosexuals and their supporters should be imprisoned.

Let's be more specific. Archbishop Peter Akinola supports the idea of Nigeria's government making same-sex relationships criminal. He also favors Nigeria outlawing positive publicity for homosexuals "through the electronic or print media, physically, directly, indirectly or otherwise," meaning up to five years in prison for the Independent staff or any media giving favorable coverage to, say, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance or Southern Colorado AIDS Project.

That's beyond religious bigotry. It's fanaticism. And it's scary for one of Colorado Springs' most historic churches to be so fractured — with so many embracing another group of Anglicans with such outrageous stances."

Updated with the Hartford Courant's story.

From the diocese:

An elected Episcopal Church review committee has decided to drop all charges brought against Bishop Andrew D. Smith by the rectors and vestries of six parishes in the Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut.

Those rectors and some of their vestry members (elected lay leaders) had filed ecclesiastical charges against their bishop, alleging inappropriate application of canon (church) law, among other charges. The charges stemmed from the six rectors’ disagreement with Bishop Smith’s decision to support the consecration of Bishop V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, and their refusal to accept the Bishop’s attempts at reconciliation including delegation of another bishop to them.

“I am thankful to learn that the Title IV Review Committee found no cause to bring a Presentment based on the charges filed against me by the complaining clergy and lay members of this Diocese who found themselves at odds with my decisions and actions as Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut,” said the Rt. Rev. Andrew D. Smith in a statement. “My desire has always been to bring reconciliation with the clergy and laity who sought to dissociate themselves from the oversight of their bishop and the mission and life of the Diocese of Connecticut. I will never abandon that desire and hope.

“The Episcopal Church has invested significant time and expense in responding to the charges which were filed by these members of the Diocese of Connecticut in 2005. I am deeply grateful for the care and thoroughness with which the Review Committee and the Church Attorney have investigated and considered the evidence, and I am thankful for their finding."

Read it all. (And note a correction in the Comments. The review committee isn't elected, but appointed.)

Updated: The letter is now online. (Hat tip: Frank)

Updated again: And now a response from the senior warden.

Paul Asay of the Colorado Springs Gazette has been doing must-read coverage of the controversy surrounding the Rev. Don Armstrong, executive director of the Anglican Communion Institute, which just a few month ago seemed to have the Anglican Communion eating out of its hand. Asay contributes to the blog Faith at Altitude, and he's got two fresh entries worth reading online right now.

One concerns a letter that will appear in tomorrow's Gazette from 19 former vestry members at Grace Church and St. Stephen's, Armstrong's parish, questioning Armstrong's conduct.

From the blog:

"(The Rev. Donald) Armstrong is exploiting theological divisions within the Episcopal Church to avoid a canonical investigation about his alleged financial wrongdoing," the letter says. "He has defied church and civil law by occupying and taking property from the church he and his allies left. We cannot keep silent."

Bishop V. Gene Robinson supports civil unions for gay couples in New Hampshire.

Meanwhile, the bishops of Newark and New Jersey think Don Imus should clean up his act.

Father Dan Martins has the story.

He writes:

The Standing Committee of the Diocese of San Joaquin (of which I am a member--that is, both of the diocese and of the SC) has written Bishop Schofield a request to use his influence with the Windsor (aka "Camp Allen") Bishops to fulfill their role in the plan enunciated by February's Primates' Communique by nominating a candidate for the position of Primatial Vicar by June 1st

I haven't been able to keep pace with the debate over the presentment against the Rev. Don Armstrong, rector of Grace Church and St. Stephen's in Colorado Springs, and executive director of the Anglican Communion Institute. But there have been some helpful observations, especially among commenters, on other blogs. C. B., who posts here regularly has posed some excellent questions and gotten some revealing answers from at least one of the players in this drama, the Rev. Dr. Christopher Setiz, president of the ACI, who, before the Armstrong story broke, was urging the Windsor bishops to invade Grenada. Or something like that.

Kendall Harmon presents a round-up of the media coverage here. Make sure to read the comments.

Mark Harris wonders how Bishop Martyn Minns will respond if it turns out that Armstrong is guilty of the charges against him. (Armstrong and his parish have decamped for the Church of Nigeria in which Minns is a missionary bishop.)

Simon Sarmiento has good links and conversation as well.

[Episcopal News Service] An Executive Council work group, appointed by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and House of Deputies President Bonnie Anderson, has begun considering the role, responsibilities and potential response of the Executive Council to the issues raised by the recent communiqué from the Primates of the Anglican Communion.

The Executive Council called for the work group via Resolution EC008, passed at its March 2-4 meeting in Portland, Oregon.

The work group members are Bishop David Alvarez (Diocese of Puerto Rico); Bishop Jon Bruno (Diocese of Los Angeles); the Rev. Dr. Ian Douglas (Diocese of Massachusetts; Sherry Denton (Diocese of Western Kansas); Dr. Delbert Glover (Diocese of Western Massachusetts); the Rev. Canon Mark Harris (Diocese of Delaware); the Rev. Gay Jennings (Diocese of Ohio); the Rev. Timothy Kimbrough (Diocese of North Carolina); and Bishop Stacy Sauls (Diocese of Lexington). Resolution EC008 named Anderson, who is also vice president of Executive Council, to chair the work group. (Jefferts Schori is president of Executive Council.) Sally Johnson, Anderson’s chancellor, is a consultant to the work group.

Anderson convened the group by conference call for the first time on April 4. The members reviewed a draft foundational working paper, compiled at Anderson’s request by Sally Johnson, her chancellor. After a final review by the group, the resulting draft will be used as the foundational working document regarding the role and responsibilities of Executive Council, Anderson said.

Read it all.

Two actually.

Bishop Barry R. Howe's statement on the recent House of Bishops meeting is here. In it, he writes:

"From the mid-nineteenth century, the Anglican Communion has always been understood as a group of autonomous churches who worship in the Anglican tradition, whose polity is built around the episcopate and local expressions of community, and who seek to work together in growing mission work throughout the world. It has been a mission-driven alliance under the spiritual leadership of the Archbishop of Canterbury. In the past decade, a new understanding of the Anglican Communion seems to be developing which seeks to be structural in the alliance of the churches. The structure appears to be one where authority is becoming centralized, and where creedal formulas and covenants are being proposed. This is a radical shift in the relationship of thirty-nine autonomous churches."

Dean Terry White of Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral touched on similar issues in his Easter sermon, saying:

"When this Church moves the ladder, it must always be because we are seeking to follow the Holy Spirit in furthering our mission. And while pressures are mounting from overseas prelates that we live differently, the Episcopal Church’s mission will not be curtailed by threats or a call to submit to a neo-fundamentalism that is seeking to redefine Anglicanism. No Episcopalian should have to choose between belonging to the Anglican Communion or being an Inclusive Church. All are welcome at this Table where Christ is host.

Throughout our history as Episcopalians we have moved the ladder to recognize the gifts of men and women, lay and ordained, baptized people of all ethnicities, and right now, the ladder is moving again to embrace both gay and straight servants of Christ in building up the Kingdom of God. And by doing so, we take another step toward becoming more fully the Body of Christ – the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.

When move the ladder, it must be because we believe the Holy Spirit is leading us to embrace all that God embraces. Moving the ladder means to reject the Status Quo. And it means to repent for past wrongs."

(You will need to read the beginning of the sermon to understand the ladder metaphor. Hat tip Sara Copeland.)

I have been slow to post the Diocese of Colorado's presentment against the Rev. Don Armstrong, executive director of the Anglican Communion Institute, mostly because I have been wary about getting caught up in every incremental development, every charge and counter charge in this increasingly bitter tale. This presentment, however, seems an important enough document, simply to offer it for your persual.

I was surprised to learn on pages 4 and 5 of the presentment that the ACI is a ministry of Grace Church and St. Stephen's, Armstrong's Colorado Springs parish, and to read the diocese's allegation that the checking accounts of the two institutions were used "interchangably."

There is no mention of Armstrong's parish on the ACI's Web site. There is a listing of a high powered board of directors, however, and I am wondering how it will respond if it turns out that the institute that has functioned as a conservative brain trust over the last three years was involved in questionable financial dealings.

My hunch is that they will make not a sound, but I could be wrong.

I promised you Mississippi Bishop Duncan Gray's statement, and thanks to Lauren Auttonberry, here it is.

Bishop Charles Jenkins of Louisiana has weighed in, but I have to admit that I am not entirely sure what he is proposing. See if you can figure it out. (Nick Knisely has had a run at it.)

Bishops Carolyn Irish of Utah and Paul Marshall of Bethlehem have written to their dioceses, and Bishop Jon Bruno of Los Angeles has written to his clergy. Click the continue reading tab to see his letter.

Read more »

Friend of this blog, but writer for another (sob), Diana Butler Bass has a nice essay on Beliefnet called Believing the Resurrection. On that same topic, I've always found this poem by John Updike very pesuasive. We will be having a look at a few other poems about the crucifixion and Resurrection in the next few days. Feel free to suggest your favorites.

The former bishop of Albany has joined the Roman Catholic Church. The Living Church has the story.

The Bishop of Pennsylvania may face an ecclesiastical trial. Details here. No word yet on whether he will exercise the "Armstrong option" and declare himself a member of the Church of Nigeria.

Hat tip Ann Fontaine

Bishop Robert O'Neill has outlined the charges against the Rev. Don Armstrong, the Colorado priest who led his congregation into the Church of Nigeria on the same day that the diocese's Standing Committee decided there was enough evidence to being a presentment against him for theft and tax fraud.

Armstrong is the leader of the Anglican Communion Institute. The charges are on the third and final page of the document.

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori's Easter message is here. A video interview with the Rev. Jan Nunley, the Episcopal Church's deputy for communications is here.

Update: See Mumcat.
Bishop Pierre Whalon of the convocatin in Europe has written on his blog:

One image I will always remember: a new bishop asked her to clarify her stand on the uniqueness of Christ. +Katharine replied that her view is similar to that of Vatican II (Nostra ætate, actually), namely that Jesus Christ is the final self-revelation of God in the world, but that salvation is possible outside of the Christian Church. He seemed dissatisfied with this reply. After adjourning the session, she went right over to him and they talked for fifteen minutes, alone in the meeting room.

This showed two things about the new Presiding Bishop. First, contrary to some reports, her Christology is orthodox. There have been some who have held that extra ecclesiam nulla salus—outside the Church there is no salvation. But this does not jibe with Jesus’ behavior toward Gentiles nor to Paul’s teaching about grace. What is essential, as the PB noted, is that Christians do not know how God saves people outside the New Covenant. Somehow Jesus Christ, through whom all things were made, makes provision, since through him all people are offered salvation.

The other aspect of this incident is that +Katharine Jefferts-Schori cares about people who do not agree with her. She did not know that I was standing outside the meeting room with two other bishops, chewing the fat, until we realized that the two of them were still talking in the room. So this was not for show.

Bishop Marc Andrus' letter to this diocese brings back memories of my grad school days when the poet Philip Booth introduced me to the work of the poet Elizabeth Bishop. You can skip ahead and get to the newsy bits if you like, but then go back and read the poem with which Bishop Andrus begins his piece.

There's both good information and great color in Bishop Geralyn Wolf's report to her diocese.

Info: "I would wholeheartedly support the Presiding Bishop’s selection of a Primatial Vicar (or whatever title is appropriate), in consultation with those dioceses who have requested same. In addition, I uphold the concept of accountability. For the integrity of our church, I believe that this should occur internally, with the Primatial Vicar serving at the pleasure of the Presiding Bishop. While the vote of the House was not unanimous, responses crossed 'party' lines." (emphasis mine: That's at least three "Windsor" bishops opposed to or uninterested in the Primates' oversight scheme.)

More info: "Bishops who support the Windsor Report gathered for a brief session, and plan to meet in August. (emphasis mine. I'd heard a report of an April meeting.) Again, these bishops hold different opinions on the work before us, but all believe that the Windsor Report remains the best document available to move forward as a Communion."

Color: "The final dinner was marked with much laughter and thanksgiving, regardless of which side you buttered your bread. The women bishops gave me another veiled miter, and Bishop Barbara Harris and I walked down the aisle of the dining room arm and arm, with the other women following. Bishop Harris kept waving her hand announcing, 'mother-of-the-bride, mother-of-the-bride.' " (Note: Bishop Wolf is getting married this summer.)

It sounds as though the bishops actually had fun, which I believe is unprecedented.

Dear Friends,

The meeting of the House of Bishops this week at Camp Allen in Navasota, Texas may prove to be an historic turning point in the life of the Anglican Communion. The Bishops overwhelmingly rejected a “Pastoral Scheme” that was proposed by the Primates of the Anglican Communion at their February meeting in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. By doing so, the bishops reaffirmed that the Episcopal Church is a self-governing, autonomous church, and that it is not divided. We also served notice that we cannot accept intervention in the governance of our Church by foreign prelates.

In addition, we affirmed very strongly our passionate desire to remain in communion with other Anglican churches across the world, and we adopted a unanimous resolution, introduced by the Rt. Rev. John Howe, the Bishop of Central Florida and leader of the more conservative bishops, asking the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Steering Committee of the Primates to meet face to face with our House of Bishops at the earliest opportunity. We believe that many foreign primates do not have an accurate sense of the Episcopal Church and we think such a meeting is imperative.

We believe that the bonds of affection which tie us to churches all across the world remain strong even if they are strained, especially with some churches in the global south. But even with those churches, we have many points of contact and shared ministry.

Differences among Episcopalians are ours to resolve, and the spirit of the House of Bishops was respectful of differences. But we are also united in protecting the integrity of the Episcopal Church as an independent, autonomous and undivided Church.

I ask you to continue to pray for our Church, for the Anglican Communion, for the Primates, for those who suffer oppression, for the poor, the needy and for all who seek the redeeming love of Christ.

Faithfully yours,

Peter James Lee

(source)

They are talking about us over at Street Prophets.

Have a look.

The Rt. Rev. Henry Parsley has written to this diocese. He says in part: "It became clear to the bishops gathered at Camp Allen that the proposal of the Primates to establish a Pastoral Council, including appointed bishops from outside our church, to provide oversight within the Episcopal Church is not compatible with our polity. This pastoral scheme outlined in the Communiqué is not workable within our Constitution and Canons, and it was important for us to say this forthrightly."

Bishop Parsely attended the second of the "Camp Allen" meetings, but he doesn't sound here like a man interested in alternative oversight. If he ever was.

I forgot to mention that the new Episcopal News Service/ Episcopal Life Web site makes its debut today. Have a look.

Polity.

Don't use the word. Ever. It is tantamount to wearing a sign around your neck that says: "Vote for me. Not only am I anally-retentive, but I enjoy using words the average person doesn't understand."

"Governance" is better, but what's really needed is a phrase that explains why "polity" is theology. A challenge to our polity is a challenge to "the way we discern and respond to the will of God."

Or words to that effect.

Update: Brian Kaylor's thoughts on this are worth reading, as always.

C. B. raises a good point in the comment box a couple of items down blog:

"The property issue clearly was a factor in the Bishops thinking. The NY Times reports:

Several bishops also said in interviews that they believed that the pastoral council arrangement was intended to strengthen the position of conservative parishes or dioceses that want to leave the Episcopal Church and take their property with them. The breakaway parishes could claim that they came under the new pastoral council guided by the primates, and that the council was the highest authority in the Episcopal Church’s hierarchy.

Bishop Mark Sisk, of New York, said in an interview, “The concern is that that would indicate we are, in some sense, subservient to the primates, rather than simply a church in fellowship with them. And that could have significant legal implications.”

Which leads me to wonder whether these implications were an unintended consequence of the Primates' communique --I think that is entirely possible. The thing was put together under duress and on deadline--or an attempt by the Communion, supported by the Archbishop of Canterbury, to acquire some American real estate.

To read the concluding statement from the House of Bishops meeting click on the "continue reading" tab.

What journalist call the "nut" graph comes late in the piece. Here it is:

It is our strong desire to remain within the fellowship of the Anglican Communion. The Primates' Communiqué, however, raises significant concerns. First among these is what is arguably an unprecedented shift of power toward the Primates, represented, in part, by the proposed "Pastoral Scheme." This proposed plan calls for the appointment of a Primatial Vicar and Pastoral Council for The Episcopal Church whose membership would consist of "up to five members; two nominated by the Primates, two by the Presiding Bishop, and a Primate of a Province of the Anglican Communion nominated by the Archbishop of Canterbury to chair the Council." We believe this proposal contravenes the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church. Moreover, because it is proposed that this scheme take immediate effect, we were compelled, at this March meeting, to request that the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church decline to participate in this aspect of the Communiqué's requests. Nonetheless, we pledge to continue working to find a way of meeting the pastoral concerns raised by the Primates that are compatible with our own Church's polity and canons. We should note that our recommendation to Executive Council not to participate in the Pastoral Scheme, though not unanimously endorsed by this House, came at the conclusion of long and gracious conversation.

Read more »

The new issue of Forbes has an excellent article on Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and women's ordination.

Afternoon update

Lisa Fox of Episcopal Majority is tracking the blogosphere's reaction to the three resolutions passed yesterday by the Episcopal Church's House of Bishops. For background, look one item downstream.

And don't miss Tobais' creative take.

The bishops gathered at Camp Allen in Navasota, Texas have heard three papers, one from the Rev. Ian T. Douglass of the Episcopal Divinity School on the Millennium Develoments goals and one from each of the Episcopal Church's two members on the panel working on the Anglican Covenant.

Douglass' presentation is here. The other presentation are by the Rev. Ephraim Radner, a board member of the Institute for Religion and Democracy, and the Rev. Katherine Grieb of Virginia Theological Seminary.

Updated: John B. Chilton provided this link to an encouraging article in the Living Church. It goes a long way toward addressing some of the concerns I have expressed below.

If this article by Alan Cooperman in The Washington Post and this one by Adam Parker in the Charleston Post and Courier are any indication, the Very Rev. Mark Lawrence and the leaders of the Diocese of South Carolina plan to blame everyone but themselves for his failure to get the consents necessary to become their bishop.

This is not only unhelpful if they hope to get Lawrence confirmed on a second go-round, it is also dishonest.

Lawrence was not rejected because of his conservative views on Scriptural interpretation homosexuality; he was rejected because he did not state his intention to keep the diocese within the Episcopal Church with sufficient clarity until the 11th hour. By the time he said the words most Standing Committees were waiting to hear, those committees were up against a deadline and, in their haste to communicate consents, at least seven did not follow the proper procedures. (Keep in mind that some Standing Committees that reportedly consented to the election filed no paperwork whatsoever.) Hence their consents could not be verified.

The Presiding Bishop's office gave South Carolina three extra days to get its consents in order. A number of standing committees met (some to reconsider decisions arleady taken) in emergency sessions when they received word that Lawrence, had, at last, been a bit more explicit in his profession of loyalty to the Episcopal Church. Both of these actions demonstrated both flexibility and generosity. In response, Lawrence and the diocesan leadership have chosen to cast themselves as the victim and attempt to make political hay out of a situation that is, in significant measure, of their own making.

My bishop voted to consent to Lawrence's election. Our standing committee did not. I had no horse in the race, and have suggested in other postings that I think Lawrence can eventually be confirmed if the diocese reelects him. But if the candidate and the diocesan leadership continue this truth-distorting, self-exonerating media offensive, they will dissipate the goodwill necessary for that to occur.

Update: Tobias Haller points us to a worthwhile exchange.

(Update: If you were expecting Mark Lawrence to acknowledge that he played any roll whatsoever in his rejection as bishop of South Carolina, this article will disappoint you. Hat tip: Doug S.)

This item is a write-thru of a previous item. Because facts are our friends.

From ENS:

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has declared "null and void" the election of the Very Rev. Mark Lawrence to be the 14th bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina....

Canonically adequate ballots were received by South Carolina from 50 diocesan standing committees. (Jim's note: 56 consents are required.) Several other standing committees were reported to have consented, but no signatures were attached to their ballots, or the ballot itself was missing from South Carolina's records, Jefferts Schori reported. Any committee that did not respond is considered to have voted no.

"In the past, when consents to episcopal elections have been so closely contested, the diocese has been diligent in seeking to have canonically adequate ballots submitted, asking Standing Committees to resubmit their ballots when necessary," she added. "It is certainly my hope that in future any diocese seeking consent to an election will use all possible effort to ensure that ballots are received in an appropriate form and in a timely manner."

Read it all.

I am hoping to keep Daily Episcopalian a recrimination-free zone. The way out of this situation is for the diocese to re-elect Lawrence, for Lawrence to restate his stance on various contentious issues, and for the Standing Committees to respond in a timely fashion.

Tobias Haller has an excellent assessment of Mark Lawrence's situation. At the moment, Lawrence seems to have fallen one Standing Committee short of the consents needed to become the bishop of South Carolina. Note Tobias' last paragraph in which he suggests that South Carolina may elect Lawrence again in the hope that next time he will get the necessary votes. I don't know the plans of the diocesan leadership, but that's what I would do if I were them.

...that while I agree with them about almost nothing, and have no real opinion about their candidate, I admire the way the folks at Stand Firm have worked to muster the necessary consents for Mark Lawrence to become bishop of South Carolina. This is what netroots activism looks like when it goes to church, and we are fools if we fail to pay attention.

Alan Cooperman does a nice job in this morning's Washington Post of noting a division between Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and liberal Episcopalians without sensationalizing or personalizing the matter. The story, which includes several quotes from Bishop John Chane, is here.

Please pray for the repose of the soul of Mary Ann Harmon, mother of Canon Kendall Harmon, who died today of cancer. Pray too for Kendall and his family as they grieve their loss.

From ENS:

The Episcopal Church is one of nearly 50 religious groups sponsoring this year's Ecumenical Advocacy Days March 9–12 in Washington, D.C.

The theme of the fifth annual gathering of social-justice advocates from around the nation is "... and How are the Children?" Nearly 1,300 religious advocates are expected to attend.

The theme, focusing on issues affecting children, will guide and inspire workshops and speakers in eight different areas of concern: Africa, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, Middle East, domestic, jubilee and economic justice, eco-justice, and global security. Experts will train participants on how to do advocacy and inform them of U.S. domestic and international policies that impact all of God's children.

The gathering will conclude with a visit to Capitol Hill where participants will ask their Congressional representatives to make the needs of children the center of the 2007 legislative agenda.

Read it all.

Podcasts for Lent. Check it out. This page on what Episcopalians believe, from the campus minister at Georgia Southern University, is also worth a look.

Diana Butler Bass spoke at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco on Sunday. The talk built, to some extent, on her presentation at our diocesan convention in late January. Give a listen.

I don't know whether you noticed it, but the blog reached a milestone yesterday when the Diocese of Nevada, former see of our Presiding Bishop, posted a call for nominations to fill the vacancy caused by her elevation in the comment section of my item on the dust settling after the Primates Meeting in Tanzania. Daily Episcopalian has never been put to such a high purpose before. This is surely a sign that blogs, as a medium, have come of age within the Church. Either that or we are living in the Last Days.

Anyway, having this notice posted on a blog got me thinking about which bloggers might make good bishops. Who would you nominate? I'd have to go for Tobais Haller, even though he inexplicably disagrees with me about the content of the recent communique. But I am not sure that Nevada is right for him.

EpiScope has a nice round-up of recent articles about the Episcopal Church. And don't miss this one from the Atlanta Journal and Constitution.

You might also want to have a look at Steve Waring's coverage of the Executive Council meeting for the Living Church.

The stories are becoming more reflective and less reactive. We may be in for a bit of a lull. Untl the House of Bishops meets in Texas in two weeks, that is.

Here is the Executive Council's letter to the Church.

A bit:

Executive Council recognizes that the requests made by the Primates, directed to the House of Bishops and the Presiding Bishop, raise important and unresolved questions about the polity of the Episcopal Church and its ecclesiology. We have authorized the appointment of a work group to consider the role, responsibilities and potential response of the Executive Council to the issues raised by the Primates. The work group will make a report and recommendations at the June 2007 meeting of the Council.

We wish clearly to affirm that our position as a church is to welcome all persons, particularly those perceived to be the least among us. We wish to reaffirm to our lesbian and gay members that they remain a welcome and integral part of the Episcopal Church.

Further, we offer our prayerful affirmation to all who struggle with the issues that concern us: those who are deeply concerned about the future of their Church and its place within the wider Communion, and those who are not reconciled to certain actions of General Convention. We wish to reaffirm that they too remain a welcome and integral part of the Episcopal Church.

My thanks to the Rev. Peter D'Angio and the people at St. Luke's in Scranton who welcomed me to their 5 p. m. service on Saturday evening. They know how to make a newcomer feel at home. Father Peter, who is new to the parish, greeted me near the door when I arrived, and two members of the congregation engaged me in conversation after the service. Were I not an out-of-town visitor, I don't doubt that I'd be receiving a follow-up phone call this week. I look forward to going back there again, the next time I visit my folks.

The Executive Council of the Episcopal Church meets today through March 4, in Portland, Oregon. You can find a roster of the Council here.

Bishop John Bryson Chane and some 250 other religious leaders have signed this letter imploring Ken Nnamani, president of the Nigerian Senate to reject a bill before the Senate that would "strip a section of the Nigerian people of their basic human rights."

Bishop Chane and the Rev. Susan Russell are also quoted in this press release from Human Rights Watch.

Hat tip to Matt, whose full post is here.

A transcript of Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori's opening remarks from her Webcast this morning can be found here.

The Retuers story is here. I think it confirms the fact that she did not commit news. My hunch is that she accomplished what she wanted, a thoughtful exposition of her viewpoint, that didn't provide any startling revelations that would change the nature of the conversation before the Church had a chance to reflect on what the Primates are asking us to do.

The ENS stories are here and here.

Rachel Zoll's piece for AP is by far the most evocative of the bunch, and best captures the mood of the question and answer period.

Watch Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori's Webcast here tomorrow at 10 a. m., EST.

The Episcopal Church is the topic de jour today on Talk of the Nation, 2 p. m. EST on your NPR affiliate.

This blogger is new to me, but I like her already.

Here's a statement from a delegation of Christian leaders who have just returned from a visit to Iran. Among their number was Maureen Shea, director of the Episcopal Church's Office of Government Relations.

As Christian leaders from the United States, we traveled to the Islamic Republic of Iran at this time of increased tension believing that it is possible to build bridges of understanding between our two countries. We believe military action is not the answer, and that God calls us to just and peaceful relationships within the global community.

We are a diverse group of Christian leaders from United Methodist, Episcopal, Catholic, Baptist, Evangelical, Quaker, and Mennonite traditions. The Mennonites have 17 years of on the ground experience in Iran. We were warmly welcomed by the Iranian people, and our time in Iran convinced us that religious leaders from both countries can help pave the way for mutual respect and peaceful relations between our nations.

During our visit we met with Muslim and Christian leaders, government officials, and other Iranian people.

Our final day included a meeting with former President Khatami and current President Ahmadinejad. The meeting with President Ahmadinejad was the first time an American delegation had met in Iran with an Iranian president since the Islamic revolution in 1979. The meeting lasted two-and-a-half hours and covered a range of topics, including the role of religion in transforming conflict, Iraq, nuclear proliferation, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

What the delegation found most encouraging from the meeting with President Ahmadinejad was a clear declaration from him that Iran has no intention to acquire or use nuclear weapons, as well as a statement that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can only be solved through political, not military means. He said, "I have no reservation about conducting talks with American officials if we see some goodwill."

We believe it is possible for further dialogue and that there can be a new day in U.S. — Iranian relations. The Iranian government has already built a bridge toward the American people by inviting our delegation to come to Iran. We ask the U.S. government to welcome a similar delegation of Iranian religious leaders to the United States.

As additional steps in building bridges between our nations, we call upon both the U.S. and Iranian governments to:

immediately engage in direct, face-to-face talks;
cease using language that defines the other using "enemy" images; and
promote more people-to-people exchanges including religious leaders, members of Parliament/Congress, and civil society.
As people of faith, we are committed to working toward these and other confidence building measures, which we hope will move our two nations from the precipice of war to a more just and peaceful relationship.

Find it here.

I think Laurie Goodstein of The New York Times has captured the range of feelings in our Church in this piece. I find Bishop Mark Sisk's quote particuarly encouraging.

And here is a statement from Bishop Neal Alexander of Atlanta.

I am led to believe that both "The News Hour with Jim Lehrer" and Fox News will have reports this evening on our situation. Breaking news may result in the stories being bumped, but both were still on the evening agenda in the late afternoon. If the early schedule holds, the Fox piece will air at about 6:30. Not sure about PBS.

The section that deals with the communique begins with reference to the controversies in ancient Rome and Corinth about whether Christians should eat the meat that was offered to idols, and then put on public sale. To read the entire letter, click the "continue reading" tab.

The section on the communique follows:

"The troubling question in the Christian community was whether or not it was appropriate to eat such meat – was it tainted by its involvement in pagan religion? Did one participate in that religion (and thus commit apostasy) by eating it? Paul encourages the Christians in Rome and Corinth to recall that, while there may be no specific prohibition about eating such meat, the sensitive in the community might refrain if others would be offended. The needs of the weaker members, and the real possibility that their faith may be injured, are an important consideration in making the dietary decision.

The current controversy brings a desire for justice on the one hand into apparent conflict with a desire for fidelity to a strict understanding of the biblical tradition and to the mainstream of the ethical tradition. Either party may be understood to be the meat-eaters, and each is reminded that their single-minded desire may be an idol. Either party might constructively also be understood by the other as the weaker member, whose sensibilities need to be considered and respected.

God’s justice is always tempered with mercy, and God continues to be at work in this world, urging the faithful into deeper understandings of what it means to be human and our call as Christians to live as followers of Jesus. Each party in this conflict is asked to consider the good faith of the other, to consider that the weakness or sensitivity of the other is of significant import, and therefore to fast, or “refrain from eating meat,” for a season. Each is asked to discipline itself for the sake of the greater whole, and the mission that is only possible when the community maintains its integrity.

Justice, (steadfast) love, and mercy always go together in our biblical tradition. None is complete without the others. While those who seek full inclusion for gay and lesbian Christians, and the equal valuing of their gifts for ministry, do so out of an undeniable passion for justice, others seek a fidelity to the tradition that cannot understand or countenance the violation of what that tradition says about sexual ethics. Each is being asked to forbear for a season. The word of hope is that in God all things are possible, and that fasting is not a permanent condition of a Christian people, nor a normative one. God’s dream is of all people gathered at a feast, and we enter Lent looking toward that Easter feast and the new life that will, in God’s good time, be proclaimed.

Read more »

We should have a statement from Bishop Jefferts Schori sometime this evening.

Lionel Deimel points out that if the Church consents to the election of the Rev. Mark Lawrence as bishop of South Carolina, Lawrence, who has suggested turning the authority of the Episcopal Church over to the Primates, will be in a position to work toward that end from within the House of Bishops.

On a related matter, Andrew Gerns has checked in with an analysis of the pros and cons of the Primates' communique.

Someone has sent me a copy of the letter that Bishop Robert Ilhoff of Maryland has sent to Archbishop Justice Akrofi of West Africa rescinding an invitation to events beginning late next month in our neighborhing diocese. I always hesitate to publish such letters--the same thing happened with the letter about Rowan Williams by Bishop Paul Marshall of Bethlehem. This is personal correspondence, and the diocesan offices are closed, so I haven't been able to ascertain whether a public statement is forthcoming. Anyway, as the letter is out there now, I feel that I can share it as well. It is below the "continue reading" tab.

The Raspberry Rabbit's reaction is here.

Read more »

Once you have had your daily dose of PSRN (Potential Schism-Related News), take a look at the story of the day, Sara Miles tale of her converstion to the Episcopal Church. On Salon, of all places. Hat tip to Nick. There are any number of compelling excerpts I could pull, but plese, read it all. Pass it around.

By the way, the article is excerpted from her book "Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion." Adult forum leaders, you have been notified.

Breaking news from ENS

By Mary Frances Schjonberg

[ENS] The Standing Committee of the Diocese of South Carolina
(http://www.dioceseofsc.org) has sent a letter to other diocesan standing committees asking them reconsider their decision to withhold their consents to the consecration of the Very Rev. Mark Lawrence as South Carolina's next bishop.

"This is an official request to those who have withheld consent to reconsider their initial action," the letter on the diocesan website says. "We intend this letter to correct some of the misinformation surrounding our Bishop Elect."

The letter, signed by the Rev. J. Haden McCormick, president of the South Carolina Standing Committee, addresses questions about the intentions of Lawrence and the diocese of remain in the Episcopal Church, the participation of Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori in the consecration of the next bishop of South Carolina and concerns about the diocese's request for "alternative primatial oversight."

McCormick's letter concludes by saying that "neither the Standing Committee of the Diocese of South Carolina nor the Bishop-elect have any interest in a consecration that does not follow the canons of this diocese."

The first section of the letter responds to questions that have been raised "regarding Mark's willingness and that of the diocese of South Carolina, should it be under his leadership, to continue to serve our Lord as faithful members of the Episcopal Church."

Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/3577_82537_ENG_HTM.htm

From Mary Frances Schjonberg of ENS:

More than 900 Episcopal clergy and laity have signed on to an open letter developed by a coalition of Episcopal peace and justice organizations and sent it to the Archbishop of Canterbury before he left England for the Primates Meeting in Tanzania.

The letter calls on Archbishop Rowan Williams to reject requests for alternative primatial oversight because they "would pose a grave danger to the Anglican Communion."

According to information released with the letter, the effort originated from the Consultation Steering Committee, a network which includes representatives from Integrity, Episcopal Urban Caucus, Episcopal Peace Fellowship, Episcopal Women's Caucus, Union of Black Episcopalians, Episcopal Ecological Network, National Episcopal AIDS Coalition, Province VIII Indigenous Ministries, Episcopal Church Publishing Company, Episcopal Network for Economic Justice, Episcopal Asiamerica Ministry Advocates, and Associated Parishes for Liturgy and Mission.

Read it all.

A delegation of 13 U.S. religious leaders, including Maureen Shea, director of the Episcopal Church's Office of Government Relations, will visit Iran February 17-25 to deepen dialogue between religious and political leaders there in the hope of defusing tensions between the U.S. and Iran.

The group is scheduled to meet with former President Mohammad Khatami and current President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, according to a new release from the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) one of the trip’s two organizers.

ENS has the story.

The latest on the Don Armstrong case from the Rocky Mountain News:

Embattled Episcopal priest Don Armstrong is consulting with civil and church attorneys about his legal options after a church panel refused to lift restrictions on him.

Armstrong wanted the Episcopal Diocese of Colorado to back off while it investigates an allegation of "misapplied funds" at his Colorado Springs parish.

Although he is presumed innocent under church law and not charged with any crime, Armstrong is forbidden to live as a priest or even speak to anyone at his 2,400-member parish while the investigation is under way.

Read it all.

Father Dan Martins of the Diocese of San Joaquin has written an essay that doesn't lend itself to easy summary. Have a look.

Bishop Jefferts Schori quoted in the Knoxville News Sentinel:

Anglicans might be compared to squids, as the former oceanographer and the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori tells it.

"They are all created by God. They are all wondrous in their own way. Some of them can't survive in the environments where others live," Jefferts Schori said.

And, at Marshall's suggestion, I call your attention to this quote, which articulates a Christology well within the Christian mainstream, and demonstrates a woman who is not going to start equivocating because of blog noise:

"Christianity in its breadth says that God became human in Jesus, that God revealed God's full self in Jesus," Jefferts Schori said in an interview with the News Sentinel. "It does not overtly say that God has never been present anywhere else, and I think that's what irritates people.

"There is a desire to say 'Well, I have the fullness of the truth, and there can't possibly be any truth anywhere else.' And if that's our understanding of God, it's too small."

Read it all.

From ENS

The Episcopal Church has joined the Diocese of Virginia in its legal dispute over possession of the property of 11 congregations in which the majority of the members and clergy voted in 2006 and early 2007 to leave the denomination and affiliate with African Anglican bishops.
Lawyers filed a 20-page complaint in the County of Fairfax, Virginia, courts on February 9. The complaint lists the Episcopal Church as the plaintiff and names as defendants the former clergy and vestry members of 11 parishes and missions, as well as trustees who technically hold title to the real property of some of the parishes.

The complaint names the parishes as defendants "because their real and personal property and affairs are currently under the de facto control of individuals who claim the right to sever the link between the parties and the Diocese and the Episcopal Church, to divert the parishes' real and personal property for their own use in affiliation with another denomination outside the United States, and to exclude the parishes' faithful Episcopalian members for use and control of that property."

The clergy and vestry, or vestry committee members in the case of the two missions, are named because they "have left the Episcopal Church, yet continue to exercise control over the real and personal property" of the congregation.

Read it all.

Our new Presiding Bishop and the new president of our House of Deputies seem to have a gift for retail politics. Both are devoting themselves to rallying the faithful, and neither avoids the press. Together they are re-energizing our Church.

Bishop Jefferts Schori, who apparently has some sort of meeting coming up in Africa this week, spent the last seven days in North Carolina, Tennessee (see her address to the Diocese of East Tennessee's convention, here) and Pennsylvania, where she celebrated the feast day of Absalom Jones. All that on the heels of a trip to Cuba, which, by the way, has appointed its first female bishop.

I particularly like this bit from her speech in East Tennessee:

"Some people understand the mission of the church to be primarily about the Great Commission, which comes later in Matthew’s gospel: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.” But both of them are part of loving God and loving our neighbors as ourselves, and one cannot be divorced from the other. I don’t imagine that God has any patience with arguments over whether evangelism or social justice ministry is more important. In order to love God and neighbor, we have to do both. Evangelism has to be understood in the sense of our baptismal covenant, as sharing the good news of Christ in both word and deed. And we would do well to recall that we cannot love God whom we cannot see, if we do not love our neighbor, whom we do see." (emphasis mine.)

Meanwhile, HOD president Bonnie Anderson galvanized a gathering of the faithful in the Diocese of San Joaquin, whose bishop is poised to lead people out of the Episcopal Church.

Every place they have gone, these two women have generated excitement among Church members, and generally positive coverage in the press. We are no longer abetting the right's campaign to paint us as a dying Church. ++Katharine and Bonnie seem to understand, in a way the leaders of our Church often don't, the importance of public perception, and lay morale, and all I can say is hooray.

Actually, that's not all I can say, but I will shut up for now.

I wish I knew whether the leaders of the Episcopal Church have done any strategic thinking about how we would respond to the various ways in which the Anglican Communion might fragment or dissolve.

To the extent that I am in touch with these folks, I think they hope, and even believe, that somehow the Communion and our Church will weather the upcoming meeting in Tanzania, after which the relevant parties will get down to work on the draft of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s covenant that will be presented at the Primates Meeting, and that when all is said and done, we will be able to affix our name to the document with a not too clouded conscience.

(And as you might guess, that makes me anxious. Click on the continue reading tab for the full 1,300 words.)

Read more »

One of the things I have admired about Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori is her willingness to go out and meet people in public forums and to answer questions directly and clearly, even though the circumstances of the moment might suggest that she should withdraw from the public eye. The most recent example of her openness comes via the media of the Research Triangle in North Carolina where she recently spoke at the meeting of the Episcopal Urban Caucus. Have a look at this story which ran in the Raleigh paper and one or two others. And then watch this television report abut Bishop Jefferts Schori honoring the first black woman priest in North Carolina. It occurs to me that while many of us are wringing our hands about being unable to egt good news about the Episcopal Church into the press, Bishop Jefferts Schori is accomplishing that almost singlehandedly in just about every media market she visits. We have not had this effective an apostle to the unchurched in a long time.

Read Susan Russell's report.

The latest developments are here. (And another tip of the hat to Ann.)

An excerpt:

While a legal dispute over ultimate control of the properties of the 11 churches, including the Falls Church Episcopal, between the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia and the new CANA configuration of dissenting congregations remains before the courts, the split in Falls Church was underscored by Saturday’s event.

By contrast, across the street on Sunday morning, the service of those calling themselves “the continuing congregation” of the Falls Church Episcopal, namely those members who did not chose to defect, almost doubled in size from the previous week.

As word of the on-going operations and worship of the “continuing congregation” has grown around the city, its ranks have begun to swell, according to a member. Leading that effort is a former F.C. Episcopal vestryman, Bill Fetsch, who resigned when a majority from that church voted in December to defect. Falls Church Mayor Robin Gardner joined the service again last Sunday, as did former Vice Mayor Marty Meserve. A nine-person choir debuted.

The group has been gathering at the Falls Church Presbyterian Church, 225 E. Broad St., at 11:15 a.m. on Sundays, and will continue to do so. It has placed ads in the News-Press welcoming the public to its services. Services this Sunday will be led by the Rev. Michael Pitkin, chaplain at the Bethesda Naval Hospital.

Meanwhile, the News-Press has learned that at least one of the clergymen at the F.C. Episcopal censured by Bishop Lee last month has approached the bishop about wishing to maintain his status in the Episcopal diocese. Also, the church’s directors of music and worship, Marv and Alice Crawford, have resigned from the CANA church to move to Colorado.

Among the currently unresolved questions for some F.C. city parents is the control of the day school that operates in the F.C. Episcopal buildings. It has not been clarified whether the school is now under control of the CANA congregation or the Episcopal Church.

In this season: 'Christ in the stranger's guise'

For the People of the Episcopal Church

As the primates of the Anglican Communion prepare to gather next week in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, I ask your prayers for all of us, and for our time together. I especially ask you to remember the mission that is our reason for being as the Anglican Communion –- God's mission to heal this broken world. The primates gather for fellowship, study, and conversation at these meetings, begun less than thirty years ago. The ability to know each other and understand our various contexts is the foundation of shared mission. We cannot easily be partners with strangers.

That meeting ends just as Lent begins, and as we approach this season, I would suggest three particularly appropriate attitudes. Traditionally the season has been one in which candidates prepared for baptism through prayer, fasting, and acts of mercy. This year, we might all constructively pray for greater awareness and understanding of the strangers around us, particularly those strangers whom we are not yet ready or able to call friends. That awareness can only come with our own greater investment in discovering the image of God in those strangers. It will require an attitude of humility, recognizing that we can not possibly know the fullness of God if we are unable to recognize his hand at work in unlikely persons or contexts. We might constructively fast from a desire to make assumptions about the motives of those strangers not yet become friends. And finally, we might constructively focus our passions on those in whom Christ is most evident –- the suffering, those on the margins, the forgotten, ignored, and overlooked of our world. And as we seek to serve that suffering servant made evident in our midst, we might reflect on what Jesus himself called us –- friends (John 15:15).

Celtic Rune of Hospitality

I saw a stranger yesterday;
I put food in the eating place,
drink in the drinking place,
music in the listening place;
and in the sacred name of the Triune God
he blessed myself and my house,
my cattle and my dear ones,
and the lark said in her song:
Oft, Oft, Oft,
goes Christ in the stranger's guise.

Shalom,
Katharine

-- The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori is Presiding Bishop and Primate of the Episcopal Church.

The Diocese of Massachusetts has reclaimed a church from schismatics. The Boston Globe has the story.

At last, a story that grasps the significance of Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori's election as our presiding bishop. The rest of the media is focused so narrowly on the fight over human sexuality, that they've had little to say about the remarkable woman who now leads us. Cathy Lee Grossman at USA Today has written the best profile of Bishop Katharine that I have seen so far.

The Anglican Scotist has a provocative piece this morning arguing, in effect, that bishops ought to crack down on potentially secessionist congregations sooner. Otherwise, they risk having to rely on state law to enforce the Church's polity.

He writes: "If it is indeed so important to defend episcopal polity as, to be unduly modest, a causally accessible possibility in our republic, our Bishops et al should not have left that defense to the expedient of secular law. What? I mean this, for instance: Bishop Lee should have inhibited Father Minns long before he became Bishop Minns, and brought the parish of Truro under a vicar. If the canons national or diocesan precluded it--which I for the record scarcely believe--he should have taken the risk anyhow, throwing himself in effect at the mercy of his fellow bishops, clergy, and the larger body of Episcopalian laity."

I think Episcopal bishops have two unattractive options: a) they can negotative in the hopes of showing that our Church is conciliatory towards its theological minority, while that minority prepares to seceed and clam the property; or they can act quickly and risk being cited as cause for further intrusion by other provinces and the Panel of Refrence.

As time goes on, it becomes clear that the Archbishop of Canterbury would happily settle the crisis in the Communion at our expense, so maybe we should forget about remaining in anyone's good graces and take the steps necessary to defend our Church--against both the secessionists and the Anglican bureaucracy.

Excellent offerings from all over:

Father Jake has extensive coverage of the Diocese of Virginia's annual meeting that includes excerpts from an excellent speech on Anglicanism by the bishop suffragan, David Jones.

The Admiral of Morality examines the precarious position of Lambeth Palace as the Primates meeting approaches. He writes:

In all of its responses to the current debates within its country and throughout the Communion, Lambeth has proceeded from a resolutely English conviction that its role and advice is essential to the continued well-being of both. It has urged all parties to all conflicts and controversies, to examines themselves and precisely why it is they stake out the places they do.

The singular shortcoming of Lambeth through all of this has been its unwillingness to direct these very questions at itself. It has displayed a penchant for secrecy, presumption, self-selection, hardheadedness, self-interest and, remarkably given its conviction that it is essential, fear.

In the process it has enlarged the very real risk that one way or another, it will lose the continued good will and partnership, of its most enduring ally, its first, oldest and most generous friend--The Episcopal Church in the United States of America.

And Richard, at Caught by the Light, is featuring this videotaped interview from a PBS program with a 15-year-old Emily who says she has prayed for five years for God to make her straight. Richard writes:

"This is a powerful piece on what happened when she came out to her family, friends, school, community, and church in a rural town in Iowa.

"As a Christian priest and pastor, I ask you to watch the conversation she has with her minister. It's a study worthy of a thousand posts and a million comments."

Please join me in extending a warm and enthusiastic welcome to EpiScope, the first of what I am told will be several Episcopal Church-sponsored blogs.

The mission of EpiScope is to track references to the Episcopal Church in the mainstream media online, correct inaccuracies and misrepresentations in news stories, opinion pieces, and other blogs--a.k.a. rumor control,
provide links to full documentation and source material for those corrections, provide a monitored forum for public discussion of substantive issues raised by stories and opinion pieces and provide a monitored forum for designated Episcopal News Service and Episcopal Life writers (and church program officers) to interact more directly with the wider Church and public.

We've needed something like this for a long time, and I am delighted that the Church has realized the importance of attempting to stem the tide of misinformation unleashed against it on a daily basis.

For an example of which, check out this lopsided Washington Times story. It could have been written by Martyn Minns press agent. Why do you figure that the self-proclaimed orthodox Christians rely so heavily on a paper owned by a man who claims to be the Messiah? I guess the lesson here is that if you get a call from Natasha Altamirano, who seems to be filling in while Julia Duin is on leave, you shouldn't be in any hurry to call back.

Lurking beneath the continue reading tab are list of sentences that allegedly appeared in church publications.

A few of my faves:

Miss Charlene Mason sang "I will not pass this way again,"giving obvious pleasure to the congregation

The ladies of the Church have cast off clothing of every kind. They may be seen in the basement on Friday afternoon.

The Associate Minister unveiled the church's new tithing campaigns slogan last Sunday: "I Upped My Pledge - Up Yours."

Read more »

The latest from Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh lurks beneath the continue reading tab.

They make a point that shouldn't need making, but does:

"Bishop Duncan is indeed the duly elected bishop of a diocese within The Episcopal Church. Despite his rhetoric, however, he is not the ruler of an independent ecclesiastical entity—that is, the Diocese of Pittsburgh—that he can freely associate with whatever church he chooses. Each Episcopal Church leader is subject to the General Convention, which elects the Presiding Bishop, establishes the church’s constitution, canons, and administrative units, to which certain rights and responsibilities are given in trust to be used to further the Church’s mission and ministries."

Read more »

Simon has extensive coverage of the coverage of developments in Virginia.

from the Diocese of Virgina

Province III Bishops Issue Statement of Support of Peter James Lee, Bishop of the Diocese of Virginia

On January 26, the Rt. Rev. David Colin Jones, Bishop Suffragan of the Diocese of Virginia, read a statement to the 212th Annual Council of the Diocese of Virginia signed by 16 bishops of Province III of the Episcopal Church supporting the Rt. Rev. Peter James Lee, Bishop of the Diocese of Virginia, and the diocesan Executive Board and Standing Committee for the decisions and actions taken concerning the congregations that have withdrawn from The Episcopal Church. The complete statement follows.

January 26, 2007

We the Bishops of Dioceses in Province III (the Middle Atlantic area) of The Episcopal Church commend and support our brother The Right Reverend Peter J. Lee, Bishop of Virginia, the Standing Committee and the Executive Committee of the Diocese of Virginia in their recent action and statement concerning several parishes within the Diocese of Virginia which have withdrawn from The Episcopal Church. We support completely these decisions necessitated by the Canons of our Church and morally responsible. Moreover, we commend Bishop Lee for the many ways over several years in which he tried to pastorally minister to, find appropriate compromises, and charitably respond to his detractors. We are proud to be his colleagues.

The Right Reverend Robert W. Ihloff, President of Province III, Bishop of Maryland
The Right Reverend Nathan D. Baxter, Bishop of Central Pennsylvania
The Right Reverend Wayne P. Wright, Bishop of Delaware
The Right Reverend James J. Shand, Bishop of Easton
The Right Reverend John L. Rabb, Bishop Suffragan of Maryland
The Right Reverend Robert D. Rowley, Bishop of North West Pennsylvania
The Right Reverend Charles E. Bennison, Bishop of Pennsylvania
The Right Reverend Frank Neff Powell, Bishop of Southern Virginia
The Right Reverend David C. Jones, Bishop Suffragan of Virginia
The Right Reverend John B. Chane, Bishop of Washington
The Right Reverend A. Theodore Eastman, Bishop of Maryland, Retired
The Right Reverend Jane Holmes Dixon, Bishop Suffragan of Washington, Retired
The Right Reverend William Michie Klusmeyer, Bishop of West Virginia
The Right Reverend Michael W. Creighton, Bishop of Central Pennsylvania, Retired
The Right Reverend Charles L. Longest, Bishop Suffragan of Maryland, Retired
The Right Reverend David K. Leighton, Bishop of Maryland Retired

The Diocese of Virginia has responded in court to claims regarding real and personal property made by 11 congregations where the majority membership has voted to leave The Episcopal Church but have not vacated or relinquished that property to the Diocese.

Click the continue reading tab to see the news release.

Read more »

This Washington Post article on the Very Rev. Shannon Johnston, newly-elected bishop of Virginia, gives me an opportunity to ask friends who consider themselves centrists, as Johnston does, what exactly a centrist is.

Take this passage:

"In a candidate questionnaire and in other comments about the role of gays and lesbians in the church, Johnston has been vague, if centrist. In a 2005 article posted on his church's Web site about the dispute, he wrote: 'I insist that the answer will not come from one of the two 'sides' but rather will be found in the Center.' "

Leaving aside the divination of the Center indicated by the use of the upper case c, let's assume we are arguing about the sum of 2+2. If I say 6, and you say 4, the answer is not 5. One of us is right and one of us is wrong. If I say the answer is 10, and you say the answer is 4, we would split the difference at 7. Which means that the more extreme my error, the further a certain sort of centrist moves in my direction.

I don't imagine that all centrists are difference splitters, but I don't really understand how they decide what they believe, or what they do when a divisive question requires a yes or no answer. Celibate or monogamous gay people--as a category, one can argue the merits of individuals--either are acceptable as ordained ministers of the Gospel in God's eyes, or they are not. You can certainly attempt to nuance your position by saying Yes, but... or No, but... Yes, but not now. No, but gay couples are welcome in all but leadership roles in our parishes. But when it comes to deciding what principle the Church or the Communion will adapt, only the Yes or the No really matter.

There is a second question, of course: Can I live in communion with people who disagree with me on the first question? Perhaps centrists are those who can answer the first question either way, but who are willing to answer the second question: Yes.

But I answer the second question Yes, and am regularly told that my ideas can be dismissed as leftist because I have answered the first question Yes as well. (Indeed, I identify myself as a liberal, in part because I think many who claim to be centrist are hiding their agendas for political advantage. Recent efforts on the House of Bishops and Deputies List to paint Ephraim Radner as a centrist fall into this category. Radner, a member of the Covenant Design Group, is affiliated with the Anglican Communion Institute, which has been associated with the Anglican Communion Network since its inception.)

So who are centrists? What do they believe and why do they believe it?

Many people who claim to be in the center strike me as people who don’t want to travel with the baggage of an opinion, and the attendant allies. I don’t have a problem with that, as long as those people don’t look down in a lordly fashion on us sweating partisans and suggest that we all just get over ourselves.

It is easier for me to understand, and to converse with leading figures on the Anglican right like Kendall Harmon and Matt Kennedy than with those who think that sitting out this struggle is a transcendent moral act. Perhaps because it seems to me more Christian to argue with someone--see the Council of Jerusalem, or any Church council, for that matter--than to look down on them.

So, if anyone who identifies themselves as a centrist can explain their philosophy to me, I would appreciate it.

(And for a good conversation on this issue, check out haligweorc, the blog of Derek the Anglican here.

By Maureen Shea
Wednesday, January 31, 2007

[Episcopal News Service] Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori joined five Christian, Jewish, and Muslim leaders from the National Interreligious Leadership Initiative for Peace in the Middle East (NILI) in a meeting with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice January 29 to discuss the Israeli/Palestinian situation. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns and Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom John Hanford IV also participated in the meeting.

"The timing was particularly important in light of Secretary Rice's meeting February 2 with the 'Quartet' -- the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations -- that is to be followed by talks between Israeli and Palestinian leaders," Jefferts Schori said. "Despite a very difficult year for Palestinians and Israelis, it is significant that 35 U.S. religious leaders, affiliated with more than two dozen Jewish, Christian and Muslim national organizations, are calling for the United States to make peace in the Middle East an urgent priority and to provide creative, determined leadership for building that peace."

Jefferts Schori was referring to the 35 religious leaders who wrote to Rice December 12 asking for a meeting with her to discuss the "urgent situation in the Middle East" and calling on the United States to make peace in the region an "urgent priority."

Read it all.

The Washington Post has a story suggesting the diocese may--just may--be on firmer legal ground in that state than the breakaway parishes.

The key paragraphs:

Martin Nussbaum, a Colorado lawyer who has represented the Roman Catholic Church and evangelical Protestant congregations but is not involved in the Episcopal Church dispute, said he believes the diocese holds the stronger legal position.

"The majority of rulings suggest that in the Episcopal Church, the secessionist congregations cannot take their stuff with them," he said.

Still, he added, there are enough inconsistencies in the way courts have handled such cases that congregational leaders are encouraged to roll the legal dice.

The Very Rev. Shannon S. Johnston seems to be on the verge of being elected the next bishop of Virginia.

The first ballot will be cast at 10:40 a. m. You can follow the voting on the diocesan Web site. You can read about the candidates here.

The Associated Press has moved a nice story about the relationship between the Rev. Luis Leon, the rector of St. John's Episcopal Church on Lafayette Square, and President George W. Bush.

Bishop Peter Lee of Virginia has inhibited 21 priests who left the Episcopal Church and placed themselves under the authority of other provinces in the Anglican Communion. The diocese's news release is beneath the "continue reading" tab. As Andrew Gerns explains here, the bishop really had not other choice.

"No one is saying that these are bad people, or even that their orders are suddenly invalidated," Andrew writes. "The process means that they cannot function as priests in the Episcopal Church. That's all. Since they don't want to be priests in the Episcopal Church, this should neither be a problem nor a hardship for them."

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Brian Kaylor, keeper of the Christian communications blog For God's Sake Shut Up, points out that: "some 'Christian' organizations exist for no other reason than to attack other Christians. It is one thing to offer constructive criticism. But it is another thing to be so focused on attacking that one even twists the facts around just to make an attack. The latter seems to be the model that the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD) follows."

The most recent case in point, Brian writes, are the "odd word games" contained in a recent press release from IRD Anglican Action Director Ralph Webb about the situation in Virginia.

One thing you won't learn from the press release is that Webb is a former vestry member at Truro, one of the secessionist churches in Virginia. Other members of the IRD staff--which once shared office space with the American Anglican Council--attend Truro, too. That is their right, of course. But it is incumbent upon on honest writer to disclose that sort of thing.

Bishop Ted Eastman preached at St. George's Church in Arlington, Va., yesterday, taking as his text, Luke 4:14-21 and the recent op-ed article by the Rev. John Yates, former rector of The Falls Church, and former parishioner Os Guinness. You will find the sermon beneath the continue reading tab.

An excerpt:

Following the example of Jesus, Christians are called to the never-ending task of revisioning. We Episcopalians who have no intention of leaving the church are, to be sure, revisionists. And so are dissenting and departing Episcopalians. Each entity continually attempts to interpret and apply scriptural and creedal authority to concrete situations in the culture that envelopes us. Such revisioning may lead to the revising of old notions, assumptions or understandings. Or it may not. It is interesting that both conservative and liberal Episcopalians have been led in the recent past to revision and revise their attitudes toward divorce and remarriage, once so narrowly proscribed by scripture and canon law.

Faithful people can emerge from revisioning processes with different – sometimes conflicting – perceptions. That should be no surprise, given the wide variety of human experiences. Nor should these differences be a barrier between Christians, as long as we all respect the spiritual gifts that God has given to each one of us. More than that, our various revisionings can, by the grace of God, challenge us all and help us all to move into deeper realms of the truth.

In order for there to be mutuality in revisioning, however, there must be a spirit of generosity which is ready to grant that other faithful individuals do take the authority of the Bible seriously, read it comprehensively not selectively, and apply what is revealed under the guidance of the Holy Spirit to the situation at hand. Of course, if any entity believes that it alone possesses the truth, then meaningful conversation is no longer possible.

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Thanks to Susan Russell for pointing out this profile of Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori in the Stanford alumni magazine. An excerpt:

Jefferts Schori’s election “is very significant in what it says about the commitment and direction of the Episcopal Church,” says Harvard’s Ann D. Braude. The director of the women’s studies in religion program at Harvard Divinity School and author of Women and American Religion notes that 2006 was the 30th-anniversary year of the regular ordination of women in the Episcopal Church. “If you’re going to make a statement, she’s a great choice because she’s brilliant, she can rise to the occasion, and she’s incredibly brave. I think she will do an outstanding job in trying to mollify tensions with other Anglican churches.”

A tip of the hat to John B. Chilton, keeper of the New Virginia Church Man blog for pointing out an exchange in the Richmond Times-Dispatch on the upcoming legal battle for control of the secessionist churches in the Diocese of Virginia.

In the lead-off piece, Jim Oakes, senior warden of Truro makes no real attempt to justify the parishes' claims that they have a right to leave and take their properties, preferring instead to recount Truro's understanding of the Episcopal Church's sins.

The second piece is different. William Etherington, a Virginia lawyer with actual knowledge about the sort of litigation that may soon commence writes:

"Litigation probably will result favorably for the diocese, most likely not by affirmative decision, but rather by a civil court's refusal to accept subject matter jurisdiction over the dispute. Historically, civil courts have deferred to ecclesiastical authorities when disputes arose within hierarchical churches."

and:

"The Virginia Supreme Court - in its 1985 decision in Reid v. Gholson, reaffirmed in Cha v. Korean Presbyterian Church of Washington in 2001 - acknowledged the hierarchical-congregational distinction, holding that hierarchical churches are guided by a body of internally developed canon or ecclesiastical law. The decisions of such churches under their internal laws may be promulgated as matters of faith and considered entirely independent of civil authority. Persons who become members of such churches accept their internal rules and decisions of their tribunals.

For that reason, the court held that civil courts must treat a decision of a governing body or internal tribunal of a hierarchical church as an ecclesiastical determination constitutionally immune from judicial review. This is the Doctrine of Church Autonomy, derived from the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which provides, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . . ." The second of these clauses, the Free Exercise Clause, effectively prohibits the government and its agencies - i.e., its courts - from interfering with the internal operations and decisions of a hierarchical church. It also calls into question the constitutionality of the trustee ownership scheme of Title 57 of the Virginia Code.

The fountainhead of the Doctrine of Church Autonomy is Watson v. Jones, decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1871. Watson established that property disputes within hierarchical churches should be decided not by testing which faction departed from traditional doctrine but by a rule of deference: Whenever questions of discipline, or faith, or ecclesiastical rule, custom, or law have been decided by the highest of these churches' judicatories to which the matter has been carried, the civil courts must accept such decisions as final and binding on them. More important, Watson recognized that the dispute there at issue - although sounding like a property dispute - was really about which group would select pastoral leaders to inculcate the faith among parishioners. Essentially, it was a request for a civil court to side with one theological faction over another. Watson reasoned that because civil courts are "incompetent judges of matters of faith, discipline, and doctrine," they ought to decline jurisdiction over such cases.

This is akin to the situation faced by the secessionist parishes. They seek to leave the Episcopal Church and its Diocese of Virginia to realign themselves with a diocese or archdiocese of another member of the greater Anglican Communion. This is a dispute that goes beyond property; it is one involving fundamental governance and matters of faith and doctrine. If civil courts decline to assume jurisdiction over this dispute (whether characterized as a property dispute or otherwise), the decision will then be left to the judicatories of the Episcopal Church, and the dispute will be resolved in favor of the diocese, which decision could then be enforced by the civil courts.

However, should the courts take jurisdiction, applying a neutral principles analysis, the result likely will be the same, since the secessionist parishes had, until December, accepted the canons and rules of the diocese and the Episcopal Church that are clear: Property is held for the benefit of the diocese and church, from which secessionist parishes cannot now unilaterally opt out. Their rejection of the canons of the diocese and church can be but prospective, not retroactive."

Pastor Dan at Street Prophets weighs in on the situation in the Diocese of Virginia:

It seems strange for a dyed-in-the-wool congregationalist such as myself to find himself arguing in favor of an episcopal polity. But the important thing here is that the episcopal system is the ground rules these people established, and they ought to live by them. I can certainly understand the dissatisfaction older members have with a denomination that they perceive to have left them, even sympathize with their predicament. I have no beef with them. But the pinheads who egg these things on (and trust me, there's a pinhead holding the cloaks of those taking potshots at the denomination - 80-somethings don't leave church without some help), now that's a different story. There's a special ring in hell reserved for people who would do this to a community for the sake of ideological purity. They may not have punched their grandmother in the gut, but they've done the next best thing. Swine. May God have mercy on them.

From Episcopal News Service

Presiding Bishop's statement following property decisions in Virginia

The Episcopal Church, in consultation with the Diocese of Virginia, regrets the recent votes by members of some congregations in Virginia to leave this Church. We wish to be clear, however, that while individuals have the right and privilege to depart or return at any time, congregations do not. Congregations exist because they are in communion with the bishop of a diocese, through recognition by diocesan governing bodies (diocesan synods, councils, or conventions). Congregations cannot unilaterally disestablish themselves or remove themselves from a diocese. In addition, by canon law, property of all sorts held by parishes is held and must be used for the mission of the Episcopal Church through diocesan bishops and governing bodies. As a Church, we cannot abrogate our interest in such property, as it is a fiduciary and moral duty to preserve such property for generations to come and the ministries to be served both now and in the future.

The recent decisions by some members of congregations in Virginia to leave the Episcopal Church and ally with the Anglican Church of Nigeria have no cognizance in our polity. Ancient precedent (from as early as the fourth century) in the Church requires bishops to respect diocesan boundaries, and to refrain from crossing into or acting officially in dioceses other than their own. As a Church we cannot and will not work to subvert that ancient precedent by facilitating the establishment of congregations which are purportedly responsible to bishops in other parts of the Anglican Communion within the diocesan boundaries of the Episcopal Church.

The Episcopal Church continues to seek reconciliation with those who have decided to leave this Church, and reminds all parties that our doors are open to any who wish to return.
Together with the Diocese of Virginia we seek to be clear about who we are as Episcopalians, and to continue to reach out in healing to this broken world. The overwhelming majority of the more than 7,600 congregations of the Episcopal Church are engaged in doing exactly that.

The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori
Presiding Bishop and Primate
The Episcopal Church

The most poignant part of Bishop Peter Lee's letter to his diocese (posted in full in the item just below this one) gives readers a sense of the lengths he went to, and the personal cost he paid, to try to keep his diocese together.

It reads:

"For years diocesan leadership has worked to accommodate the views of the leadership of these churches. We have resisted attempts to deny them seat, voice and vote at the Annual Council when they stopped funding the budget of the Diocese. They have enjoyed access to our diocesan-managed medical and dental benefits. They have enjoyed other diocesan resources like grant funding for church planting, mission work and congregational development, Shrine Mont and Roslyn. I have met dozens of times with the leadership of these churches and with their counsel in an effort to find common ground on matters of theology. Three times I invited the retired Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey to conduct confirmations and receptions when my episcopal presence was either specifically refused or would have been a source of tension for the membership. I endured being told that the parents of confirmands would not want me to lay hands on their children at confirmation and I have received other personal attacks including death wishes in letters, reports and public statements.

I have tried to find a way forward in our dispute over property that would keep us from having to resort to civil courts. No longer am I convinced that such an outcome is possible, nor do I believe that such a move at this time is dishonorable. Rather, I believe as does the leadership of our Diocese and of our Church, that the actions taken to secure our property are consistent with our mission and with our fiduciary and moral obligations to the Church of our ancestors, to the church we serve today, and to the church of those who will follow us. "

Bishop Lee is both a sensitive pastor and a skillful diplomat. He deserved better than this.

The Executive Board of the Diocese of Virginia has released a statement published below. In addition, a letter to members of the diocese from Bishop Peter Lee can be found beneath the "continue reading" tab. Meanwhile, a moron with a can of spray paint defaced a door at Truro Church over the weekend.

The media release begins here:

Today, January 18, 2007, the Executive Board of the Diocese of Virginia took a step forward in preserving the mission and ministry of the Diocese and the Episcopal Church for current and future generations of Episcopalians and adopted a resolution concerning the property of 11 Episcopal Churches where a majority of members -- including the vestry and clergy -- have left The Episcopal Church but have not relinquished Church property and have continued to occupy the churches and use the property owned by the Diocese.

Specifically, the Executive Board declared the property of those churches – real and personal – to be abandoned in accordance with the Canons of the Diocese.

“All real and personal property held by or for the benefit of any Church or Mission within this Diocese is held in trust for The Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Virginia.” (Canon 15.1)

“No part of the real property of a Church, except abandoned property, shall be alienated, sold, exchanged, encumbered or otherwise transferred for any purpose without the consent of the congregation … [and] the Bishop, acting with the advice and consent of the Standing Committee of the Diocese.” (Canon 15.2)

Having declared the property abandoned for the purposes for which it is set aside, namely the mission of the Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Virginia, the Executive Board is required to protect the property, according to the Canons:

“[W]henever any property, real or personal, formerly owned or used by any congregation of the Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Virginia for any purpose for which religious congregations are authorized to hold property under the provisions of the Code of Virginia or any amendment thereof, has ceased to be so occupied or used by such congregation, so that the same may be regarded as abandoned property by the Executive Board, which shall have the authority to declare such property abandoned and shall have the authority to take charge and custody thereof, the Executive Board shall take such steps as may be necessary to transfer the property to the Bishop…” (Canon 15.3)

The unanimous decision by the Executive Board also authorizes the Bishop to take such steps as may be necessary to recover or secure such real and personal property.

In addition, the Standing Committee met today for its regular monthly meeting and took up the issue of the status of the clergy attached to these congregations. Following today’s meeting the Standing Committee will communicate its determination to the Bishop according to the Canons.

The 11 churches where property has been declared abandoned are:
Church of the Redeemer, Chantilly
Church of the Apostles, Fairfax
Church of the Epiphany, Herndon
Church of Our Saviour, Oatlands
Church of the Word, Gainesville
Potomac Falls Church, Sterling
St. Margaret’s, Woodbridge
St. Paul’s, Haymarket
St. Stephen’s, Heathsville
Truro, Fairfax
The Falls Church, Falls Church

Read more »

The Rev. Penelope Duckworth, writing in the San Jose Mercury News effectively dismisses the arguments made by the Rev. John Yates and Os Guinness of the Falls Church in their recent fact-free piece in The Washington Post.

She concludes: It is notable that the authors did not leave after the approval and consecration of the Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson (the first openly gay bishop) in 2003. The schism occurred in 2006 and followed the election of the first female presiding bishop. Up until then, those who opposed women's leadership were cushioned by allowances which permitted male episcopal authority if requested. With the consecration of The Most Reverend Katharine Jefferts Schori, there was suddenly no man who had more authority, and so sexism was flushed from its cover. Like many schismatics, the authors claim to represent the true church. But, in fact, they are objecting to decisions made democratically by duly elected representatives. In this ``Week of Prayer for Christian Unity,'' Christian churches all over the world will remember that Jesus prayed for unity. So did Gerald Ford and, no doubt, George Washington. It is still a longing of the faithful.

There are few credibly irenic voices in the Episcopal online world. Tobias Haller's is one. Read his poem for the week of Christian Unity. You'll feel better and sleep easier.

It begins:

Beloved sisters and brothers, let me tell you a mystery.
Nothing will be lost. All will be restored.
In the economy of salvation, nothing goes to waste.
Our God is not a God of acceptable losses.
Nothing God has made deserves God’s hatred.
Everything that is was created in love.
Each atom, every blade of grass,
and most of all each human soul,
reposes in the assurance of divine, unalterable love.
Nothing will be lost. All will be restored.

[ENS] Noting that "the road to peace goes through Jerusalem, not Baghdad," Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has responded to President George Bush's January 10 speech on Iraq and related U.S. military activity. The complete text of Jefferts Schori's statement follows:

While I welcome President Bush's recognition that the situation in Iraq is unacceptable, I am deeply saddened by his failure to address peacemaking in the context of the whole region. It is a mistake to view Iraq only through the prism of terrorism. Others have pointed out that the road to peace goes through Jerusalem, not Baghdad. In order to bring peace to the Middle East, not just Iraq, and the land we Christians call holy, there must be a comprehensive regional plan that culminates in a two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians. Our country must engage diplomatically not only the U.N., European Union and Russia, but all the nations in the Middle East, including Iran and Syria. Diplomacy, built on a foundation of mutual respect and interest among people of good will, not more troops, can bring an end to this tragic conflict. We continue to pray for our soldiers and their families, as well as for all the people of the Middle East, seeking God's wisdom in the search for peace with justice, for shalom and salaam.

The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori
Presiding Bishop and Primate
The Episcopal Church

An extensive interview of Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori by Laura Lynn Brown of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette is lurking beneath the continue reading tab.

Here is one important section:

"Brown: I want to ask you about a couple of other things you've said in interviews. One of those was in the 10 questions in TIME magazine about the small box that people put God in. Could you elaborate a little bit on your take on "Jesus is the way, the truth and the life" [a paraphrase of John 14:16]?

Bishop Jefferts Schori: I certainly don't disagree with that statement that Jesus is the way and the truth and the life. But the way it's used is as a truth serum, or a touchstone: If you cannot repeat this statement, then you're not a faithful Christian or person of faith. I think Jesus as way - that's certainly what it means to be on a spiritual journey. It means to be in search of relationship with God. We understand Jesus as truth in the sense of being the wholeness of human expression. What does it mean to be wholly and fully and completely a human being? Jesus as life, again, an example of abundant life. We understand him as bringer of abundant life but also as exemplar. What does it mean to be both fully human and fully divine? Here we have the evidence in human form. So I'm impatient with the narrow understanding, but certainly welcoming of the broader understanding.

Brown: What about the rest of that statement -

Bishop Jefferts Schori: The small box?

Brown: Well, the rest of the verse, that no one comes to the Father except by the son.

Bishop Jefferts Schori: Again in its narrow construction, it tends to eliminate other possibilities. In its broader construction, yes, human beings come to relationship with God largely through their experience of holiness in other human beings. Through seeing God at work in other people's lives. In that sense, yes, I will affirm that statement. But not in the narrow sense, that people can only come to relationship with God through consciously believing in Jesus."

The Presiding Bishop's critics have argued, bizarrely, in my view, that her views on salvation place her outside the Christian mainsteam. I have argued that they are pretty much the views of the Roman Catholic Church, which, last time I checked, was pretty squarely within the Christian mainsteam.

Here critics charges have been parrotted by The Red Queen, aka Archbishop Henry Orombi of Uganda, who has decreed that words mean what he says they mean, nothing more, nothing less. I still don't think these assertions stand scrutiny. And neither does the Anglican Scotist. (Who is much smarter than I am.)

Thanks to Bible Belt Blogger, Frank Lockwood, religion editor of the Democrat-Gazette.

Read more »

From his blog Ayia Iluvatar:

Who are these revisionists?
As I read articles from the "Extreme Right" in the church these days, I often struck by the dichotomy between what they say the Episcopal Church is like, and the Episcopal Church as I have experienced it. The claim usually runs that the Episcopal Church has abandoned all of the underpinnings of orthodox Christianity, including belief in the Bible as the Word of God, beliefs in the doctrines of the Trinity, Resurrection, Salvation through Jesus, etc. Quite often (as in American Anglican Council videos) the specter of James Pike is brought up as somebody who started the "slide" and then usually John Shelby Spong is cited as one who continues it.

My confusion is that I didn't know who James Pike was until I started to study the history of Episcopal splinter groups (a couple of years after seminary) and no one I personally know of in the church thinks of JS Spong as a central theologian. When I was in seminary in 2001, the popular theologians were Karl Rahner, NT Wright, Mark McIntosh and John Zizioulas - hardly a line-up of radical revisionists! The priests I know, especially the ones under 50, are more likely to be interested in Radical Orthodoxy than radical deconstruction. I have met very few Episcopalians, liberal or conservative, who are interested in the Pike/Spong type of non-theistic theology. Most people I know, no matter where they sit on the current issues that face the church, would be happy to subscribe to the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral - the best general statement of traditional, expansive Anglican orthodoxy.

Read it all.

Thirty-day Standstill Agreement Not Renewed

The Episcopal Diocese of Virginia announced today that it will not renew the 30 day standstill agreement with the clergy and members of congregations who voted to leave the Episcopal Church to associate with the Anglican Church of Nigeria. The terms of the agreement were set to automatically renew unless one party notified the others seven days prior to the expiration of the agreement. The Diocese notified these congregations today of its decision not to renew the agreement, which is set to expire on January 17.

The leadership of the Diocese of Virginia – Bishop Peter James Lee, the Standing Committee and the Executive Board – will meet after the expiration of the standstill agreement to determine their next course of action. Specifically, the Standing Committee must decide the status of the clergy of the departed congregations. In turn, the Executive Board must consider whether the property of these Episcopal churches has been abandoned.

The standstill remains in effect until January 17 and the Diocese will continue to honor its terms and take no legal or canonical actions prior to its expiration.

Bishop Lee and other leaders of the Diocese continue to consider the full range of pastoral responsibilities to those faithful Episcopalians in the congregations who chose to remain loyal to the Diocese and The Episcopal Church.

Many of you have called and emailed asking how to respond to the op-ed from the Falls Church in today's Washington Post.

Here is the Post's policy on Letters to the Editor:

"Letters Policy
Letters must be exclusive to The Washington Post, and must include the writer's home address and home and business telephone numbers. Because of space limitations, those published are subject to abridgment. Although we are unable to acknowledge those letters we cannot publish, we appreciate the interest and value the views of those who take the time to send us their comments.

Letters via E-Mail
The e-mail address is letters@washpost.com. Do not send attachments; they will not be read."

You can also contribute to an online discussion here.

I have enjoyed watching people who have decided to place themselves under the authority of Archbishop Peter Akinola, a man who freely admits that he recoiled the only time he knowingly touched a gay person, that their departure from the Church isn't primarily about homosexuality. Having aligned themselves with a man who proudly articulates his bigotry, the leaders of the Truro and the Falls Church now labor to direct the public's attention away from Akinola and toward the allegedly "real reasons" that they left the Episcopal Church.

Their latest attempt at diversion appears today on the op-ed page of The Washington Post. The piece is notabley notable because it demonstrates the Episcopal and Anglican right's propensity for confusing assertion with evidence.

In their introduction, the Rev. John Yates and Os Guinness write that: "Fundamental to a liberal view of freedom is the right of a person or group to define themselves, to speak for themselves and to not be dehumanized by the definitions and distortions of others." They then proceed to distort or oversimplify the position of the Episcopal Church and the intellectual history of the Christian faith in every succeeding paragraph.

To read Yates and Guinness, one would think that the Church has never changed its mind on a controversial moral issue, and that various Christian bodies have never disagreed with one another. One might also think that Roman and Orthodox Catholics are not actually Christians because their Church do not embrace the sola scriptura (scripture only) standard articulated by Yates and Guinness.

This attempt to read the Episcopal Church out of the mainstream of Christianity succeeds primarily in exposing the authors' own pinched intolerance and their willingness to caricature the beliefs of people whom they do not know in order to justify their own questionable behavior.

In other words, it is about what we have come to expect from them.

The Charleston Post and Courier has a major package today on the controversy in our Church. I haven't had a chance to read it yet.

Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has a timely column on evangelism in this month's issue of Episcopal Life.

An excerpt:

Part of our evangelical task is making our worshiping communities welcoming in a deep, human, relational sense. The gospel is about radical hospitality, after all, and that is what we are meant to model.

The other side of this challenge is how we might speak good news in language and forms that people uneducated in Christianity can understand and welcome. If our language engenders fear, it is likely to drive people away. If it welcomes and invites, the possibility can be quite different.

This may not be seen in many places in the Episcopal Church, but consider your own reaction to “If you don’t believe the way we do, you’re going to hell.” Not only does hell not have much reality for the unchurched, there is an arrogance in that approach that many find repellent.

There are more subtle forms of that message, however, that are rampant in this church. We use language that is understandable only by insiders – and not just the arcane terms of our liturgy and polity (and those words themselves won’t be understood by many!).

There is an underlying message in many faith communities that says, “The way we worship (or hold Sunday school or run our vestry meetings or …) is the only right way.” And the implication that is heard is, “There is no welcome here for you if you can’t do it our way.” There is an aspect of that message that is quite un-Anglican, if we really want to live up to our value of comprehensiveness.

Alexander Baumgarten, international policy analyst for the Episcopal Church's Office of Government Relations, talks aabout the Church's commitment to the Millennium Development Goals in this video.

Came across this ditty on the House of Bishops and Deputies list (of all places) today. It is a lyric by Garrison Keillor. Sung to the tune of Ain't Misbehavin'.

I'm slow to anger, don't covet or lust.
No sins of pride except sometimes I really must.
Episcopalian, saving my love for you.

The theology's easy, the liturgy too.
Just stand up and kneel down and say what the others do.
Episcopalian, saving my love for you.

I bless myself with a flick of the wrist.
You'd never know I was raised fundamentalist.
Episcopalian, saving my love for you.

There's white folks and black, and gay and morose,
Some male Anglo Saxons but we watch them pretty close.
Episcopalian, saving my love for you.

The singular nature of Truro and the Falls Church is well illustrated in a story in today's Washington Post. One point of interest: many of the folks in these congregations are not Episcopalians. I don't have a problem with that, but it seems to me that it relieves us of the responsibility of listening to these folks when they start lecturing us about what it means to be truly Anglican.

According to the Gazette newspaper of Colorado Springs, the Rev. Donald Armstrong, III, executive director of the Anglican Communion Institute, is under investigation for possibly misusing his parish's funds.

Armstrong, rector for Grace and St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, "was placed on 90-day paid administrative leave last week by Bishop Robert O’Neill, head of the Episcopal Diocese of Colorado. He’ll be unable to step on church property or wear his habit during that time, and 'will not exercise any functions or pastoral responsibilities as a priest,' according to a diocesan release."

The ACI is a conservative Episcopal/Anglican think tank with close ties to Bishop Robert Duncan's Anglican Communion Network.

Mary Francis Schjonberg of ENS has this story:

A plan to recruit and incorporate newcomers, clarity of mission and ministry, contemporary worship, involvement of children in worship, geographic location, a website and the absence of conflict are key factors in why some congregations in America are growing, according to the latest national survey of U.S. faith communities.
The survey, sponsored by the Cooperative Congregational Studies Partnership (CCSP), found that wanting to grow is not enough. Congregations that grow must plan for growth.

"Congregations that developed a plan to recruit members in the last year were much more likely to grow than congregations that had not," according to a report on the survey written by C. Kirk Hadaway, Director of Research at the Episcopal Church Center in New York.

The survey findings are available in "FACTs on Growth." The data was taken from the Faith Communities Today 2005 (FACT2005) survey of 884 randomly sampled congregations of all faith traditions in the United States. The survey updates results from a survey taken in 2000, and is the latest in CCSP's series of trend-tracking national surveys of U.S. congregations.

Hadaway told ENS that the survey showed that the average so-called "mainline" congregation was less likely to grow than non-denominational, evangelical congregations. More surprising to many people, Hadaway said, is that Roman Catholic congregations are not growing in a way comparable to the increased number of Roman Catholics in the United States.

The report notes that "when all congregations are combined, there is very little relationship between growth and theological orientation. In fact, the proportion growing is highest on the two end points: predominantly conservative congregations and liberal congregations (growth rates of 38% and 39%, respectively)."

"More important than theological orientation is the religious character of the congregation and clarity of mission and purpose," the report continues. "Growing churches are clear about why they exist and about what they are to be doing."

An analysis devoted to Episcopal parishes is here.

(ENS) The first in a 10-part series of Sunday bulletin inserts on the United Nations' eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and ways in which the Episcopal Church is committed to their realization is suggested for use this coming Sunday, January 7.

The series has installments for the Sundays from January 7 to March 11.

The inserts are available in English and in Spanish.

Since several of you have asked: No, I am not the Jim Naughton who Tom Brokaw referred to yesterday in his eulogy of President Gerald Ford. I have never worn a chicken's head to get the attention of the President of the United States. That's another guy. I refer to him as the real Jim Naughton, and people who know us both refer to him (at least in my presence) as James the elder. He left the New York Times, having covered the White House just before I arrived at the Times to cover hockey. We are buddies. But we aren't the same guy.

An excerpt from the Rev. Robert Certain's sermon at today's funeral for former President Gerald R. Ford.:

Gerald Ford was a Christian man, a man who lived his life in accordance with the virtues of the Beatitudes. For us, he will continue to serve as an example of how to live as a man of faith, a man of the nation, a man for the world.

Early this past summer, as I prepared to leave for the General Convention of the Episcopal Church, President Ford’s concern was for the church he loved. He asked me if we would face schism. After we discussed the various issues we would consider, particularly concerns about human sexuality and the leadership of women, he said he did not think they should be divisive for anyone who lived by the Great Commandments to love God and neighbor. He then asked me to work for reconciliation within the Church. I assured him I would, just as he had worked for reconciliation within the nation thirty years ago.

Our friend Bowie Snodgrass, content manager for episcopalchurch.org has three pieces of news.

1) We’re on YouTube!
www.youtube.com/TECtube

So far, we’ve posted 13 videos, including: ‘Jefferts Schori's Convention address following her election’ and our *newest addition* ‘Presiding Bishop Nominee Jefferts Schori’ www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifdrSgFJ_sA (answering the question: “What are the priorities for the new Presiding Bishop?” Recorded May 1, 2006)

2) Who is Jesus to You?

www.episcopalchurch.org/visitors_24527_ENG_HTM.htm

Responses from the Jesus Survey we did a few months back (many thanks to those of you who posted it!)

Additional pages culled from the survey results to be posted in 07.

3) Small Membership Churches BLOG

smallepiscopalchurch.blogspot.com

Maintained by the Rev. Suzanne E. Watson (Episcopal Church Center staff)

Funeral services in two parish churches and Washington National Cathedral will reflect President Gerald R. Ford's faith tradition as an Episcopalian active in lay ministry.

Ford's volunteer accomplishments, including work for the 1990 completion of the National Cathedral, were praised by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori in a December 27 statement recognizing his "care-filled ministry." The statement's full text is available here.

Ford and his wife, Betty, also shared in fundraising initiatives for Episcopal Relief and Development, formerly the Presiding Bishop's Fund for World Relief. The former President joined in saluting Mrs. Ford when she addressed the 1985 meeting of the General Convention in Anaheim, California, also attended by Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Runcie.

The Fords have been active member of several congregations. During their 1974-1977 White House tenure they often attended St. John's, Lafayette Square, known as the "Church of the Presidents."

ENS has the story.

The Rev. Robert Certain, rector of the Ford family's church in California will preach at the funeral. He had recently announced his retirement. You can read some of his writings here and here. His General Convention blog is here.

Last October, Calvary Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Pittsburgh, led by Bishop Robert Duncan, moderator of the Anglican Communion Network, reached a settlement in a lawsuit in which the parish charged, in essence, that the diocese was unlawfully attempting to appropiate the property of the Episcopal Church.

The settlement upheld "current church law that parish and diocesan property belong to the denomination," wrote Steve Levin of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Calvary believes that recent activities by the diocese, including its decision to withdraw from Province III of the Episcopal Church, its withholding of money from the Episcopal Church, and its request for Alternative Primatial Oversight, violate the settlement agreement, and so, on Tuesday, the parish filed a petition "asking the Court of Common Pleas [to] enforce what we believe to be the correct reading of the Stipulation and Order entered October 14, 2005."

Calvary has requested an expedited discovery process to allow it to receive "equitable relief in advance of an international meeting of the Primates of the Anglican Communion scheduled for February 14-17, 2007 in Tanzania. On information and belief ... [that] Bishop Duncan and Primates of foreign countries are planning to use the occasion of the meeting... to promote Bishop Duncan's organiation and to implement actions directed at impairing the ability of Plaintiffs, TEC and TEC's constituents to maintain or recover their lawful interests in the Property."

Calvary is particularly interested in the November meeting in Falls Church, Va., attended by Duncan, various conservative Episcopal bishops and several African Primates. Citing Bishop John-David Schofield's presentation to his deaneries in the Diocese of San Joaquin, they argue that Duncan and others agreed at that meeting to "submit to the authority of certain foreign Primates."

This ENS story quotes the Rev. Rick Matters, who has opposed San Joaquin's moves toward session, as saying that Schofield told the deaneries that he signed a "pledge of allegiance" to six Anglican Communion bishops, including Nigerian Primate Peter Akinola and Archbishop Gregory Venables of the Southern Cone.

If the use of the phrase "pledge of allegiance" can be authenticated, it could be important.

Calvary's press release is beneath the "continue reading" button. The petition is online at a link at the bottom of the release, but includes exhibits, so the file is 315 pages. I will link to the 16-page petition when it becomes available.

Read more »

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori is the guest voice this week in the Washington Post's new Web-based feature On Faith. Have a look, but bring your asbestos underwear. Apparently a female bishop who supports gay rights is a bit of a stumbling block for some people.

Meanwhile, Newsweek has tabbed the PB as someone to watch in its current issue on up and coming leaders.

Update, The Nation has chimed in with Holy Homophobia by Richard Kim, and Ed Kilgore of the political blog New Donkey shares his views as well.

That stinging headline appeared on Howard Meyerson's column today in The Washington Post.

An excerpt regarding the decison by Bishop Martyn Minns and his followers to join forces with Archbishop Peter Akinola and the Church of Nigeria:

"Explaining the decision to leave the American church, Vicki Robb, a Fairfax parishioner and Alexandria public relations exec, told The Post's Bill Turque and Michelle Boorstein that the church's leftward drift has made it "kind of embarrassing when you tell people that you're Episcopal." It must be a relief to finally have an archbishop who doesn't pussyfoot around when gays threaten to dine in public.

The alliance of the Fairfax Phobics with Archbishop Restaurant Monitor is just the latest chapter in the global revolt against modernity and equality and, more specifically, in the formation of the Orthodox International. The OI unites frequently fundamentalist believers of often opposed faiths in common fear and loathing of challenges to ancient tribal norms."

Meanwhile, The Economist has this:

The breakaway congregations are putting themselves up for adoption by Anglican archbishoprics in the developing world. One would-be parent is a Nigerian bishop, Peter Akinola, who runs the largest province in the Anglican communion, and who has pronounced views on homosexuality: he supports legislation that would make it illegal for gays to form associations, read gay literature or even eat together. There are also suitors from Rwanda, Uganda and Bolivia.

And on the Guardian's blog, comment is free, Bruce Bawer writes: For years now, antigay Episcopal leaders have been cultivating ties with people like that Nigerian bishop with an eye to eventually jumping ship. Now these two Virginia congregations have taken the plunge, placing themselves under the authority of Archbishop Peter Akinola, primate of the Church of Nigeria - a man who not only opposes gay bishops but enthusiastically supports a proposal by his nation's government to outlaw meetings of homosexuals. In doing so, these parishes - whose histories are wrapped up in the history of the founding of American democracy - have betrayed both their American and their Anglican roots.

For though they beat their breasts over their fealty to "traditional values," these secessionists have demonstrated quite dramatically that they don't know the first thing about Anglican tradition - which from the beginning has called on the faithful to focus on what brings them together, not on what divides them, and whose glory is not a book of discipline but a book of common prayer. They call themselves orthodox, but in an Anglican context they're anything but. They thunder that their denomination has been taken over by gays and their supporters; the fact is that third-world Anglicanism has largely fallen under the sway of reactionary demagogues who have left Anglican traditions and values far behind.

Episcopal News Service
December 19, 2006

In this season: light in the darkness

One in a series of occasional reflections from the Presiding Bishop

[ENS] Note to readers: With this posting, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori begins a series of occasional reflections for the people of the Episcopal Church. The reflections will also be available on the Presiding Bishop's web pages.

In this season: light in the darkness

For the People of the Episcopal Church

The Episcopal Church continues to focus on its mission of reconciling the world, particularly as it cares for the least, the lost, and the left out. We participate in God's mission to heal the world as we feed the hungry, house the homeless, educate children, heal the sick, and seek to change the systems that perpetuate injustice.

We also seek reconciliation with those within and beyond this church who differ from us theologically. While we regret the recently publicized departures of individuals from churches in Virginia and elsewhere in this Church, and the rejection of this Church's elected leadership by various bishops here and across the world, we continue to seek reconciliation.

God is not served by bickering, name-calling, and division. We recall Jesus' prayer in John's gospel, "that they may be one" and understand that to include the whole world -- those who agree and those who disagree, people of different faith traditions and none, and the poorest and most broken among us.

We will continue to engage in that mission of healing the world, whatever others may decide. In this season, we affirm the ancient dream of peace in our day, shalom, salaam, the peace of God which passes all understanding.

May the Prince of Peace shine in your hearts, and may that light bless the world.

"The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it"
(John 1:5).

Shalom,

Katharine

-- The Most Reverend Katharine Jefferts Schori is Presiding Bishop and Primate of the Episcopal Church.

By Mary Frances Schjonberg

[ENS] The Episcopal Diocese of Virginia said December 18 that it has the agreement of people who voted December 17 to leave the Episcopal Church that they will not attempt to transfer church property to their ownership for 30 days.

In return, the diocese promised not to initiate any litigation concerning the departures for the same amount of time, according to a statement issued after Bishop Peter Lee, the diocese's Executive Board and Standing Committee met in an emergency joint session the afternoon of December 18.

"The Episcopal Church is going to be there in partnership with the Diocese of Virginia to help bring healing in any way that we can, and to continue to remind everybody that we are engaged in larger mission," Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori told ENS.

"If some people decide they need to go then our best recourse is to bless their journey and to remind people that the door will remain open and the porch light on," she said.

Eight of Virginia's 195 congregations announced December 17 that their members had voted to sever ties with the Episcopal Church and affiliate with the Anglican Church of Uganda or the Anglican Church of Nigeria by way of the Anglican District of Virginia, part of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA).

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori was interviewed on NPR tonight. You can listen to it here. The Admiral of Morality has a snippet here.

Truro and the Falls Church have voted to leave the Episcopal Church and affiliate with the Church of Nigeria.

Statement from the Rt. Rev. Peter James Lee, Bishop of the Diocese of Virginia

Today a small number of congregations in the Diocese of Virginia announced that they have voted to separate from the Episcopal Church and affiliate with the Church of Nigeria and Bishop Akinola. I am saddened by this development.

The leadership of the Diocese of Virginia has labored for three years to seek another course that would have maintained the integrity of the church and the spirit of inclusiveness that has been a hallmark of the Diocese and the Anglican Communion. The votes today have compromised these discussions and have created Nigerian congregations occupying Episcopal churches. This is not the future of the Episcopal Church envisioned by our
forebears.

I have called a special joint meeting Monday of the Executive Board and Standing Committee of the Diocese, with counsel, to consider the full range of pastoral, canonical and legal obligations of the Church and our responsibilities to those faithful Episcopalians in these congregations who do not choose to associate with the Church of Nigeria.
In the interim I have asked the leadership of these now Nigerian and Ugandan congregations occupying Episcopal churches to keep the spiritual needs of all concerned uppermost in their minds at this difficult moment in our Church history, especially continuing Episcopalians. I also have directed diocesan personnel to work with the leadership of the departing congregations and with those who wish to remain in the Episcopal Church to reach agreements for the shared use of the Church property for the purposes of worship and other needs until final disposition of the Church’s property can be settled.

I want to be clear on this point: Our polity maintains that all real and personal property is held in trust for The Episcopal Church and the Diocese. As stewards of this historic trust, we fully intend to assert the Church’s canonical and legal rights over these properties.

Today is indeed a sad day for the Church and for many in the Church. It is also a day of abundant hope that in our 400 years as Virginia’s oldest Christian community, the Episcopal Church in Virginia will continue to serve Christ faithfully by serving his people.

After Truro and the Falls Church announce their decision to secede from the Episcopal Church tomorrow, much will be said about the laws regarding possession of church property. Many of the speakers won't have the faintest idea what they are talking about. As one of their number, I intend to stay out of that fray. I did want to call attention, however, to one small fact, which is that if leadership of the two churches felt certain that they would maintain the property, they would not have made an ill-advised bid to get a sympathetic state legislator to change state law to ensure the desired outcome.

The story began last February after a bill favorable to the departing congregations was already well advanced in the Virginia Senate. The Washington Post’s story began:

“RICHMOND, Feb. 1 -- A bill before the Virginia Senate has alarmed the Episcopal Church and other mainline Protestant denominations that are deeply torn over the ordination of gay ministers and the blessing of same-sex marriages because, they say, the measure would give local congregations unprecedented powers to break away from their national denominations.

Several major church groups on Tuesday urged lawmakers to reject the bill, which they said would entangle state government in church politics.”

The bill was introduced by Senator Bill Mims, a member of Holy Spirit in Ashburn.

The Post reported:

“Mims said the bill was not meant to target the Episcopal denomination or get involved in its internecine conflict. Though the laity in his own Episcopal congregation in Ashburn has discussed the issue, Mims said, there have been no official moves to split with the church.

He said the congregation, which objected to New Hampshire's gay bishop and has joined the opposition Network of Anglican Communion Parishes, did not request that he introduce the bill.

The Rev. Clancy Nixon, vicar of Church of the Holy Spirit, Mims's congregation, said he supports the measure.”

So, as it happens, did the American Anglican Council.

Fortunately, this was a bill so bad that it shriveled in sunlight. Newspapers around the region fell over themselves editorializing against it. The Post wrote:

"The bill is not explicitly directed at the Episcopalians, but it seems to respond directly to their current fight. And its result would be that conservative Virginia congregations could leave the Episcopal Church without becoming homeless.

Whether the Episcopal Church permits gay clergy is a matter for the church to decide, not the Virginia General Assembly. The First Amendment greatly restricts the power of government to interfere in questions of religious doctrine, and how a church allocates power and property between its central and regional authorities is a matter of canon law, not civil law. Consequently, courts have long deferred to the churches on such questions in the name of religious liberty. A bill that seeks to override churches' own rules on such matters is not likely to survive constitutional scrutiny -- nor should it. The General Assembly should not be taking sides in an argument among the faithful."

The Falls Church News Press was blunter, calling the bill "a blatant, self-serving attempt to cause the state legislature to weigh in on behalf of dissidents within the Episcopal Church opposed to the recent consecration of an openly-gay bishop."

The Hampton Roads Daily Press chimed in: "The bill comes from an unsavory source: a relentless, multi-front campaign to constrain the rights and protections of homosexuals. Does anyone believe that the General Assembly would be intervening if the decamping churches were in favor of gay rights?"

Mims withdrew the bill, the text of which is here. (Hat tip to Simon Sarmiento.)

As the Diocese of Virginia prepares to deal with the leadership of Truro, the Falls Church and the other breakaway congregations in its midst, it will be important to keep in mind how these folks play the game.

One gets the feeling from browsing through the Fall Church News Press that the congregation, which will likely announce its departure from the Episcopal Church tomorrow is not exactly well liked by its neighbors.

This is form the paper's lead editorial this week:

Rather than affirming a generosity of spirit and Good Samaritan compassion that can embrace and nurture a complex and multi-faceted humanity, in this case, the leaders of the Falls Church Episcopal have chosen to stand against the civil authority of the U.S. Constitution that promises equal rights for all, just as happened in all those pulpits that, in the past, denounced what they called the “un-Godly” acts of freeing slaves, ending segregation, or more recently, ending prohibitions on interracial marriage. Church folk experience such hate, emotionally, as a burning righteous indignation.

If this week’s vote results in the departure of Falls Church Episcopal from the Episcopal denomination, the church will go down in infamy as a regrettable and despised bastion of bigotry, prejudice and hatred.

This analysis characterizes what is happening at Truro and hte Falls Church as an "Old South" backlash"

In the churches voting to defect this week, two of their mantras pertain to “Jesus Christ as the sole path to salvation” and “Biblical inerrancy.” Their leaders assert the larger denomination has drifted too far from these tenants of the faith while, oh by the way, ordaining a gay bishop (the principal lightning rod motivating their defections).

A young friend was once under the sway of one of these churches, but ran into the problem of going off to college and cultivating his powers of independent thinking. He related to me a conversation he had with a minister at the church when he then started doubting this notion of “Biblical inerrancy.”

and:

Then the next question, it seems to me, would be, “Who gets to draw that line?” Ministers would say, of course, “God.” But in reality, few have ever claimed to see a big hand with perfect penmanship really pierce some cloud cover and lay it all out. In other words, it’s really a very human proposition, and as such, subject to very human frailties.

The same goes for the claim that “Jesus Christ is the only way to salvation.”

Not only does this necessarily leave the vast majority of humanity for all of history doomed to Hell, it does also for all Christians who don’t live up to certain preachers’ definitions of sufficient faith. It leads to the same question: Who gets to decide what “Jesus as the only way” means?

Could it mean that emulating the spirit of one filled with compassion for the downtrodden and abused, who told parables that taught tolerance and acceptance of differences represents the “only way?” Not likely, not with these folks.

In fact, it’s hard to know what drives these people’s kind of religious intolerance more, fear or nasty personal bigotry. In the end, which it is it doesn’t really matter.

God Among Us

Christmas Message 2006
By Katharine Jefferts Schori

God loved us so much that he came to dwell among us, to tent among us in human flesh... There is a wonderful echo there of God's presence in the tent while Israel wandered in the wilderness. The gift of the Incarnation says that God is willing to take on the human tent of flesh and be one with and among us.

That frail tent of flesh proves capable of holding divinity, but also capable of yielding up its spirit. Irenaeus and Athanasius insisted that the gift of Incarnation was that "God became human, that we might become divine." You and I are bearers of the image of God, and you and I share in Incarnation, for Jesus has walked this way before us. God is born in us as well.

The vulnerability of being born in obscurity, to a peasant refugee couple, in an out of the way place, says to us that God is with us in the smallest parts of life -- perhaps a reminder that we, too, may discover God in those humble and unexpected places if we are willing to go in search.

Matthew's story of the wise ones from the east who come searching for this new thing, this remarkable child, is equally a reminder that God's love extends to all, that God comes among us in human form for all humanity, not just for our co-religionists, not just for those who expect God's appearing in the same way we do, and not just in predictable ways at the altar.

Recently I watched and listened to a woman on a bus as she engaged in conversation with a three-year-old boy. The woman asked the child what happens at Christmas, but the boy, though highly verbal, wasn't able to say much. With his parents' apparent agreement, she asked him about Santa Claus, and began to tell him all about waking up on Christmas Day and finding presents. She didn't talk about St. Nicholas on his feast day, or about Jesus and his birth, but she did convey a sense of the wonder and love connected to Christmas.

That is an opening for those of us who claim to be followers of Jesus. It is the kind of invitation heard by the wise ones from the east. Even Santa Claus –- far removed though today's version of the story may be from the holy faithfulness of St. Nicholas -- can be another kind of star leading others to the humble stable where God comes among us. God continues to come among us in humility, God continues to be birthed in fragile opportunities that will need to be nourished and tended by others. The little boy on the bus has had his mind and heart opened to hear the bigger story about Christmas. Now, who will tell the old, old story of God's love to those so ready and eager to hear?

-- The Most Reverend Katharine Jefferts Schori is Presiding Bishop and Primate of the Episcopal Church.

Diana Butler Bass, who will be the featured speaker at our diocesan convention at the end of next month, did an online chat today for The Washington Post.

I was particularly intrigued by this answer:

I do not believe that there are only two sides in this dispute -- I can identify five distinct groups of Episcopalians.

Yes, there are two parties in tension: Old-line liberals and radicalized conservatives. This is the fight we most often read about in the media. However, you point out a third possibility, a centrist party that is trying to navigate between the two extremes (Bishop Peter Lee in Virginia would represent the centrists). From my own research, you are right. The extremes aren't the whole story.

However, there are two additional groups, and these two are far less noticed. I refer to these groups (they don't have a clear "party" identity) as "progressive pilgrims" and "emergent conservatives." These two groups tend to see "issues" like this one as secondary concerns to the practice of Christian faith and are more concerned with things like the practice of hospitality, living forgiveness, practicing reconciliation, learning to pray, feeding the hungry, caring for the environment, and maintaining the Anglican practice of comprehensiveness (being a church of the "middle way"). They may lean slightly left or slightly right on "issues," but reject partisan solutions to theological problems. Both progressive pilgrims and emergent conservatives are far more interested in unity than uniformity; and they appreciate diversity in their congregations as a sign of God's dream for humanity to live in peace.

Tobias Haller and Mark Harris have weighed in. Update: Andrew Gerns, too.

(If this issue is new to you, there is background here.)

Simon Sarmiento of Thinking Anglicans has a copy of the answers that Mark Lawrence, bishop-elect of South Carolina, has provided to various bishops and Standing Committees who will be voting on whether to consent to his election.

Sarah Dylan Breuer has written an essay about the "increasing chaos" among breakaway movements within, or just outside of, the Episcopal Church. It serves as a useful counterpoint to The New York Times amusing-were-it- not-damaging portrayal of Saturday's vote in San Joaquin as "one more step in a carefully planned strategy by conservative Episcopalians in the United States and primates of Anglican provinces, many in the developing world, to unite the conservatives, claim the mantle of Anglicanism and isolate the Episcopal Church."

The notion that the Episcopal right is marching with one mind, in one pattern, toward one goal would come as news to anyone who is paying attention, including the leaders of the Episcopal right. But the left shouldn't take too much comfort in that. It is possible to die of a thousand cuts.

From ENS

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has offered the following response to actions of Bishop John-David Schofield and the Convention of the Fresno-based Diocese of San Joaquin. An ENS story reporting on the convention meeting, held December 1-2 with delegates participating from the diocese's 48 congregations, will be posted later today.
Response to San Joaquin's Convention

I lament the actions of the Bishop and Convention of the Diocese of San Joaquin to repudiate their membership in the Episcopal Church. While it is clear that this process is not yet complete, the fact that the Bishop and Convention have voted to remove the accession clause required by the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church would seem to imply that there is no intent to terminate this process before it reaches its full conclusion. Our task as the Episcopal Church is God's mission of reconciling the world, and actions such as this distract and detract from that mission.

I deeply lament the pain, confusion, and suffering visited on loyal members of the Episcopal Church within the Diocese of San Joaquin, and want them to know of my prayers and the prayers of many, many others.

I continue to consult with others involved in responding to this extracanonical action.

The Most Reverend Katharine Jefferts Schori
Presiding Bishop and Primate
The Episcopal Church

NEWS RELEASE

December 1, 2006

On Friday, Dec. 1, the Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia, Peter James Lee, sent a letter to the rectors, vestries and wardens of congregations known to have engaged in a “40 Days of Discernment” program to consider their place in The Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Virginia. Some of those congregations have chosen to conclude that program with votes, to be held this month, to determine their future affiliation with the Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Virginia

In his letter, Bishop Lee highlighted that the members of those congregations are cherished members of the Diocese and the Episcopal Church, and that he and the Standing Committee hope they will decide to continue to worship as one, unified family.

“I pray you will remain in communion with your brothers and sisters in Virginia and take your full place in the life of the Diocese of Virginia,” he wrote. “Ours is a faith historically defined by our ability to bring together people with different theological emphases within traditional faith and order,” he added. Bishop Lee also stated his concern that any decision to leave the Episcopal Church will be a source of regret for future generations.

The letter also explained some of the potential legal and canonical consequences of a decision to separate from the Episcopal Church, addressing issues of property and personal liability.

“Along with the damaging effects any split would have on the Diocese as a whole and these churches in particular, we are concerned that these congregations may not fully understand the potential legal consequences of their actions,” said Russell Palmore, chancellor of the Diocese of Virginia. “The decision to leave the Diocese should be a fully informed one.”

To see the bishop's letter, click on continue reading

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Meeting in convention today, the Diocese of San Joaquin has done something or other, but I am not quite sure what. The AP story is here. Father Jake and some others commentators are calling this a move toward session. But I am not persuaded they are right.

At first glace, at least, it seems to me that after weeks of proclaiming its desire to shake the dust of the Episcopal Church off of its feet, the diocese has instead expressed its disdain for dust and pronounced its feet clean.

Note this paragraph: The resolution was noticeably weaker than an amendment pulled this week that would have given delegates the choice to formally split with the U.S. denomination, which would have set off a legal battle over the diocese's millions of dollars in real estate.

Whatever the case, Bishop Schofield's convention address is worth reading because it gives one such a vivid sense of the man.

At second glance, there may be more here than I originally supposed, but I'm not sure I've got the background to figure it out. I still think the resolution to which we've paid the most attention (the beginning of Article II as I recall) is not particularly consequential. But elsewhere in Simon Sarmiento's extensive links I came across a resolution that, if passed on second reading next year, would declare the diocese a corporation sole. If that action were taken, and allowed to stand by the courts, it would establish diocesan sovereignty in matters of property. That would, obviously, be a radical departure from our current understanding of how we have organized ourselves, and I think Network strategists should note that it cuts both ways. Yes, diocesan ownership would trump national ownership, so in Network dioces that might be beneficial. But it would also trump congregational ownership. So in non-network dioceses it would harm the larger cause.

At least that is my not especially educated read. It does seem to me that San Joaquin is trying to force the national church to take them to court. I hope we here something from 815 or Bishop Saul's property committee soon, because this is a confusing situation.

Here is The New York Times story which comes with an erroneous headline. The diocese didn't vote to seceed, it appears to have voted to put itself in a position to seceed at its next convention. What is especially curious is that the Times teased this story on its front page. In what universe does the fact that a dioces with 7,000 people might vote to seceed from the church next year at this time constitute front page news?

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has urged Episcopalians to join the ONE campaign as a way of marking World AIDS Day. Here is an excerpt from her statement, which you can read in full by clicking on "continue reading."

On this World AIDS Day, I urge all Episcopalians to join the "ONE Episcopalian" campaign, a unique partnership between the Episcopal Church and ONE: The Campaign to Make Poverty History. By becoming a ONE Episcopalian, you can unite your voice with more than 2.4 million Americans who are working, ONE by ONE, to create a world free of AIDS and deadly poverty. You can sign up online at www.episcopalchurch.org/ONE, and it takes less than ONE minute.

The resources and strategies for preventing HIV and treating AIDS are fully within humanity's reach. Mobilization of resources by the United States and other countries over the past four years has increased treatment rates more than eight-fold in Africa and brought new hope to millions of people. Still, HIV-prevention efforts lag as infection rates continue to rise in many of the world's hardest hit regions. At least 4.3 million new infections occurred in the past year alone, with more than six in ten coming in Sub-Saharan Africa.

In order to turn the tide, governments must put full resources behind efforts like the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Moreover, existing programs have to be continually adapted to ensure that they are as dynamic as possible in meeting the needs of local communities. Most importantly, prevention and treatment efforts must be combined with efforts to fight poverty, empower women, and build the sustainable communities envisioned by the Millennium Development Goals.

2007 promises to be a significant year as both the U.S. Congress and the international community will face key decisions in the fight against AIDS and poverty worldwide. More than ever, the voices of citizens like us will be critical, and by joining the ONE Episcopalian Campaign, we can ensure that our voices are heard.

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UPDATE: Some bloggers and commenters have suggested that in the story below, the AP may have misinterpreted the most recent letter between Bishops Schofield and Jefferts Schori. I've looked into this in some detail, and I can say that that wasn't the case. The most recent story on the situation is here. It includes this:

" 'Instead of declaring that we're on our way to this or that province, it says we recognize and declare that we're Anglican,' said the Rev. Van McCalister, a spokesman for the diocese, which covers a wide swath of Central California. Amendments can be made during the meeting."

The language that will be put before the conventions is as follows: The Diocese of San Joaquin is constituted by the Faith, Order, and Practice of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church as received by the Anglican Communion. The Diocese shall be a constituent member of the Anglican Communion and in full communion with the See of Canterbury.

So, I think this bears out the story below.

Breaking news from AP:

NEW YORK — Episcopal leaders offered conservatives more independence from the national church Thursday, as a California diocese quietly backed down from its threat of a swift break with the denomination.

The Diocese of San Joaquin, based in Fresno, made the change as it came under pressure from Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and her advisers to ease off a proposal to leave.

A spokesman for the Diocese of San Joaquin, the Rev. Van McCalister, would not elaborate Thursday on why his diocese changed course on breaking away. Two weeks ago, Jefferts Schori told San Joaquin Bishop John-David Schofield in a public letter that leaving would put "many people at hazard of profound spiritual violence" and was akin to violating his ordination vows.

Read it all here.

From Episcopal News Service

A group of bishops, including Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, has developed a proposal responding to "An Appeal to the Archbishop of Canterbury" addressing what other petitioning bishops and dioceses have termed "alternative primatial oversight" or "alternative primatial relationship." Full texts of the group's response and accompanying statement follow here.

A Response to "An Appeal to the Archbishop of Canterbury"

Some bishops and dioceses of the Episcopal Church have requested that the Archbishop of Canterbury provide what they have variously called "alternative primatial oversight" or an "alternative primatial relationship." In consultation with the Presiding Bishop, the Archbishop of Canterbury proposed that a number of bishops from the Episcopal Church meet to explore a way forward. A first meeting took place in September, and a second meeting in November developed the following proposal that seeks to address the concerns of those parishes and dioceses which for serious theological reasons feel a need for space, and to encourage them to remain within the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion.

1. Taking seriously the concerns of the petitioning bishops and dioceses, the Presiding Bishop, in consultation with the Archbishop of Canterbury, will appoint a Primatial Vicar in episcopal orders to serve as the Presiding Bishop’s designated pastor in such dioceses. The Primatial Vicar could preside at consecrations of bishops in these dioceses. The Primatial Vicar could also serve the dioceses involved on any other appropriate matters either at the initiative of the Presiding Bishop or at the request of the petitioning dioceses.

2. The Primatial Vicar would be accountable to the Presiding Bishop and would report to an Advisory Panel that would consist of the designee of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Presiding Bishop’s designee, a bishop of The Episcopal Church selected by the petitioning dioceses, and the President of the House of Deputies (or designee).

3. This arrangement for a Primatial Vicar does not affect the administrative or other canonical duties of the Presiding Bishop except to the degree that the Presiding Bishop may wish to delegate, when appropriate, some of those duties to the Primatial Vicar. The Primatial Vicar and the Advisory Panel shall function in accordance with the Constitution and Canons of The Episcopal Church.

4. Individual congregations who dissent from the decisions of their diocesan leadership are reminded of the availability of Delegated Episcopal Pastoral Oversight and its process of appeal.

5. This arrangement is provisional in nature, in effect for three years, beginning January 1, 2007. During that time, the Presiding Bishop is asked to monitor its efficacy and to consult with the House of Bishops and the Executive Council regarding this arrangement and possible future developments.

Statement

A group of bishops, including the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, gathered at the initiative of the Archbishop of Canterbury, has developed a proposal for the appointment of a Primatial Vicar in response to those bishops and dioceses that have requested what they termed "alternative primatial oversight" or an "alternative primatial relationship."

Those present at the September meeting, in addition to Bishops Griswold and Jefferts Schori, included Bishops Peter James Lee of Virginia, and Bishop John Lipscomb of Southwest Florida, as co-conveners, and Bishops James Stanton of Dallas, Edward Salmon of South Carolina, Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh, Jack Iker of Fort Worth, Dorsey Henderson of Upper South Carolina, Robert O’Neill of Colorado, and Mark Sisk of New York. Bishop Don Wimberly of Texas was invited but did not attend. The Rev. Canon Kenneth Kearon, Secretary-General of the Anglican Communion was also present at the September meeting.

The same bishops and Canon Kearon were invited to the November meeting with the exception of Bishop Griswold who had completed his tenure as Presiding Bishop. Bishop Don Johnson of West Tennessee joined the group in November. Bishops Salmon, Stanton, Iker, Duncan and Wimberly did not attend the November meeting. Bishop Lipscomb, who had been involved in the planning of the meeting, was unexpectedly hospitalized at the time of the November meeting, sent his sincere regrets, and was briefed on the meeting at its conclusion.

The proposal provides for the appointment by the Presiding Bishop, in consultation with the Archbishop of Canterbury of a Primatial Vicar as the Presiding Bishop’s designated pastor to bishops and dioceses that have requested such oversight. The Primatial Vicar, in episcopal orders, could preside at consecrations of bishops in those dioceses. The Primatial Vicar, accountable to the Presiding Bishop, would report to an advisory panel that would include the designees of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Presiding Bishop, the President of the House of Deputies, and a bishop of the Episcopal Church selected by the dioceses petitioning for pastoral care by the Primatial Vicar.

The response makes clear that the arrangement does not affect the administrative or other canonical duties of the Presiding Bishop except to the degree that the Presiding Bishop may wish to delegate some of those duties to the Primatial Vicar. The response also specifies that the Primatial Vicar and the Advisory Panel shall function in accordance with the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church.

The response drafted at the New York November 27th meeting is provisional in nature, beginning January 1, 2007 and continuing for three years. The New York group asked the Presiding Bishop to monitor its efficacy, and to consult with the House of Bishops and the Executive Council regarding the arrangement and possible future developments.

The response has been submitted to the Archbishop of Canterbury and to the bishops of the petitioning dioceses.

Bishop Lee of Virginia, co-convenor of the meetings that drafted the response said: "The group was conscious of the need to respond quickly to the needs of parishes and dioceses which felt themselves to be under pressure and sought a proposal which could be put into place without delay. Accordingly, this is a provisional measure that is entirely within the discretion of the Presiding Bishop and requires no canonical change nor any action by the General Convention. It is intended to provide some space for dioceses and congregations that feel they need it while the Anglican Communion sorts out more lasting measures to deal with differences. Those of us who drafted it hope it will be received and used in good faith."

Predictably negative reactions here and here.

I am open to the amicable separation of dissenting congregations from the Episcopal Church. And I am open—post separation—to congregations in our church aligning themselves with other provinces in the Communion, so long as theological minorities in other provinces are accorded similar rights. And I am eager to move in the direction of resolution as quickly as possible because I believe the anxiety that attends our current crisis is detrimental to the health of our Church.

But if separation is attempted through confrontation rather than negotiation, if rights are asserted by parties who do not possess them, then I think the Church has to respond aggressively, or risk anarchy. For that reason, I was pleased to read the letter Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori released yesterday to Bishop John-David Schofield of the Diocese of San Joaquin (whose relevant etter is here.)

In this letter, Bishop Jefferts Schori makes a single, unremarkable point: The Episcopal Church intends to adhere to its constitution and canons. That this statement produced such relief on the left and anger on the right (see the appropriate blogs for a sampling) indicates that the Church had previously done a poor job of communicating its resolve.

For more than three years, the Church’s internal and external opponents have behaved as though in consecrating Gene Robinson as the Bishop of New Hampshire, the Church forfeited the right to enforce its own rules. Bishop Jefferts Schori has made it clear that this is not the case.

I think the presiding bishop’s letter will allay the anxiety of the majority of the Episcopal faithful, who may have wondered whether the Church’s leaders had spine sufficient to respond to a direct challenge.

I would like to believe that Bishop Schofield would now step back from the reckless course he has chosen and open negotiations with the presiding bishop on an amicable, honorable departure. This situation needn't escalate, as more judicious conservative leaders, who have chosen a less confrontational course, are well aware.

ENS is reporting that Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has sent the following letter to Bishop John-David Schofield of the Diocese of San Joaquin. (Background info is available here.)

My dear brother:

I have seen reports of your letter to parishes in the Diocese of San Joaquin, which apparently urges delegates to your upcoming Diocesan Convention to take action to leave the Episcopal Church. I would ask you to confirm the accuracy of those reports. If true, you must be aware that such action would likely be seen as a violation of your ordination vows to "uphold the doctrine, discipline, and worship of Christ as this Church has received them." I must strongly urge you to consider the consequences of such action, not only for yourself but especially for all of the Episcopalians under your pastoral charge and care.

I certainly understand that you personally disagree with decisions by General Conventions over the past 30 and more years. You have, however, taken vows three times over that period to uphold the "doctrine, discipline, and worship of the Episcopal Church." If you now feel that you can no longer do so, the more honorable course would be to renounce your orders in this Church and seek a home elsewhere. Your public assertion that your duty is to violate those vows puts many, many people at hazard of profound spiritual violence. I urge you, as a pastor, to consider that hazard with the utmost gravity.

As you contemplate this action I would also remind you of the trust which you and I both hold for those who have come before and those who will come after us. None of us has received the property held by the Church today to use as we will. We have received it as stewards, for those who enjoy it today and those who will be blessed by the ministry its use will permit in the future. Our forebears did not build churches or give memorials with the intent that they be removed from the Episcopal Church. Nor did our forebears give liberally to fund endowments with the intent that they be consumed by litigation.

The Church will endure whatever decision you make in San Joaquin. The people who are its members, however, will suffer in the midst of this conflict, and probably suffer unnecessarily. Jesus calls us to take up our crosses daily, but not in the service of division and antagonism. He calls us to take up our crosses in his service of reconciling the world to God. Would that you might lead the people of San Joaquin toward decisions that build up the Body, that bring abundant life to those within and beyond our Church, that restore us to oneness.

I stand ready for conversation and reconciliation. May God bless your deliberation.

I remain

Your servant in Christ,

+Katharine

The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori
Presiding Bishop and Primate

The interview with Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori mentioned a few items downblog is here.

Episcopal News Service is reporting that an interview with Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori may be appearing in The New York Times Magazine this Sunday. If it does, you will find it here. My guess is that it would be the "Questions for..." feature usually done by Deborah Solomon.

The folks at Stand Firm in Faith are reporting that the vestries of Truro Church and the Falls Church, two large churches in northern Virginia, have voted to disaffiliate from the Episcopal Church.

Update: a press release from the churches is beneath the "keep reading" button. (Hat tip, Kendall.)

Update, the second: the Diocese of Virginia's press release is now available. (Hat tip, Karen B.)

Update, the third: For some reason, these events have put me in mind of the following passage from George Will's book Bunts: When Ted Williams retired in 1960, a sportswriter said that Boston knew how Britain felt when it lost India. Indeed. Britain felt diminished, but also a bit relieved.

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Bishop John-David Schofield of the Diocese of San Joaquin has written a letter to his diocese about seceeding from the Episcopal Church. Click to read it all.

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U2charist to air on ABC's Nightline

[ENS] The national news show Nightline filmed the November 3 "U2charist" that was held at All Saints Church, Briarcliff Manor, in the Episcopal Diocese of New York.

The service will be aired on Nightline on Friday, November 10, at 11:30 p.m. http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline.

Nightline also interviewed the rector, the Rev. Tim Schenck, as well as people who participated in the service.

The U2charist, which rallies around the Millennium Development Goals and the ONE Campaign, features the music of the Irish rock band U2 and its lead singer, Bono.

You can learn more about U2charists here.

The Washington Post carries a very nice piece this morning on a church in our neighboring diocese of Virginia

"On the first Monday of every month, the Rev. Robert H. Malm stands before his congregation at a special requiem service and reads the name and rank of every U.S. serviceman or woman who was killed in Iraq or Afghanistan the previous month.

The first thing he notices is that most of the casualties are enlisted men. The officers and the women, those names jump out. But it's the privates, the specialists, the corporals and the sergeants who are dying in Iraq and Afghanistan."

Read it all.

The most recent issue of The Christian Century includes an article in which news editor John Dart quotes C. Kirk Hadaway, our Church’s director of research, as saying we have suffered a “precipitous drop” in membership in the last three years.

The article says in part:

“[W]e were actually doing better than most other mainline denominations in the 1990s through 2002, with a few years of growth," Hadaway told the Century. "So it is a precipitous drop in losing 36,000 in both 2003 and 2004, and now 42,000 in 2005."

Half of the losses stemmed from parish conflicts over the 2003 Episcopal General Convention's approval of the election of an openly gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, according to Hadaway.”

I’ve written before about the problems I perceive in the way in which our Church shares information with the people in the pews. In this instance, I think it would have been helpful to observe the principles of Damage Control 101. When you have bad news to report, you break the news yourself, you do it as quickly and completely as possible, and you do your best to explain why it happened.

It’s very strange to have the news come out as it did in this case, at a conference of the Religious Research Association, in connection with a paper on ‘Propagation, Proselytization, and Retention: Interpreting the Growth, Decline and Distribution of Religious Populations’ that Hadaway co-authored Penny Long Marler of Samford University. And from what I can tell, the information that Hadaway cites is still not available on the internet, which is also kind of odd.

Dart quotes James B. Lemler, the Church’s director of mission, as saying the losses "are not more than we expected.” Had we released this news ourselves, we could have offered something quite a bit more vigorous. Something along the lines of “We’ve made a painful choice for the sake of the Gospel, and as these numbers make clear, we have paid a price for doing so. That’s a common occurrence in the history of Christ’s Church. Our hope is that theme in Christian history. It is our hope that people who believe as we do that God calls us to include gay and are inspired by our choice will come…

I know there are people at the “home office” who understand media relations, but I don’t think they are being listened to.

Moving from back story to front, I’ve been perplexed by the response to the Century’s article by people whom I usually agree with. There’s been an attempt to downplay the significance of this development on the House of Bishop and Deputies list, which seems to me to be part of a pattern to minimize the importance of our continually declining membership. On one level this is understandable. In the midst of our current controversy, any sign of failing health in the Episcopal Church is attributed by partisan commentators to the election of Bishop Robinson. We, in turn, respond defensively saying that not only isn’t the consecration responsible for our membership problems (which is largely true if one accepts the inevitability of this one time hit we have taken) but we don’t actually have any membership problems (which is not true.)

We need to get past our defensiveness, and make a coherent, comprehensive response to the many forces that are slowly emptying our pews. We are “selling” the Gospel, the most valuable thing in the world, yet institutionally, we display neither urgency nor sophistication in our attempts to sell it.

Am I being unfair? Or are people as frustrated about efforts in this regard as I am?

Just as I was about to post this item, I saw that my friend Father Jake had posted it as well. It's an essay by Father John-Julian, founder of the Order of Julian of Norwich that appeared on the House of Bishop and Deputies list two days ago. We are reprinting it with his permission, and with his email address. So you can correspond with him by clicking here.

The Mystical Christ

What has been eroding in the Church for the last two generations has been the denial of its central and primal mystical dimensions. We keep seeing Jesus as some historical personage, delimited by time and space. We keep seeing “church” as institutional. We keep seeing the Word as a collection of black scribbles on a page. We keep seeing the core of our ecclesial nature as either canonical or biblical or organizational. We keep refusing the ineffable, immeasurable, and unimaginable dimensions of our Christ, and the universal utter Presence of the Holy Spirit.

Why are young people these days talking about wanting “spirituality” without “religion”? Because religion has been shrunken and withered into law, measurement, emotion, and/or overt certainty about those things we cannot even vaguely comprehend. Why do people turn to New Age religion? Because it recognizes the mystical dimension, albeit in a sad, weak, and occult way.

Meister Eckhardt, Dame Julian, John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila, and dozens of other Christian mystics through the centuries all speak of the “divine” in each human being – something of the Creator God, some image of Divinity, implanted or inherent in our very creation. And that is not dependent upon any specific creeds or canons. The Creator Christ dwells no less in the Muslim or the Jew than in the Christian. We are each a “mini-incarnation”. When the Muslim bows down in his five daily prayers, it is Christ bowing down. When the Jew lights the candles for her Sabbath meal, it is Christ who brings light to that table. When the Buddhist seeks for union with the Eternal, it is the Christ who is both seeking and sought.

John’s plain and unadorned theological statement that “God is love” was extended in our antiphon for the Maundy: “Ubi amor, ibi deus” “Where love is, there is God!” And we can say with the same certainty: “Where love is, there is Jesus Christ.” That same Jesus Christ died not for some, but for all, and he has brought the potential for the fullness of salvation to every human soul – even those who because of some accidental historical or sociological or prejudicial circumstance don’t happen to call him “Jesus” as we do. He is the Way – that is, any human way to God is Christ. He is the Truth – that is, every truth is Christ. He is the Life – that is, every life is Christ. There is no way to the Father except through the Christ, so all ways to the Father are also Christ, even when that is not overtly stated.

The difference is that the Christian sees all this more clearly, understands it more deeply (though no less incomprehensibly), calls him by his name, and worships accordingly. And the Christian is joyously eager to share that insight, that comprehension, and that worship – not as triumphantly righteous or rigidly exclusive or narrowly judgmental, but as eagerly generous and utterly unselfish, so glad that the joy can be shared lovingly (as is the very nature of all true joy and love). Our evangelism cannot be “You are wrong, and we are right” but, your “unknown God”, your Allah, your Yahweh, your Manitou, is also the generous Father whose Son sacrificially cancelled all ideas of divine wrath or judgment.

None of this “demotes” Jesus Christ in any way, nor dismisses him as merely-one-among-many, nor by-passes the Atonement. What it does is to recognize Christ’s infinite ubiquity, his universal mystical incidence, his unlimited enfolding presence, and our own weak inadequacy in comprehending the spiritually immeasurable vastness that is the true Jesus Christ.

And if this is true between religious traditions, it is thrice true within the Mystical Body that is Jesus Christ. Whatever words you may use, you, oh eye, simply cannot cancel me who am a foot. You may curse me or despise me or refuse me a place at table, but you cannot evade the fact that whether you like it or not, we are and will always be one – inside the mystical Christ. And since we are one, you simply cannot live the Christ life without me, no matter how much you may wish it. The Blood of Christ flows out copiously and floods and drowns and washes all of us, forgiving all our sins, enfolding all of us in divine grace. And we are already one, just as the Christ and the Father are one. And may whatever bogus falsehood gives the lie to that cosmic truth shrivel and die.

And so may we go out and allow the Christ in us to serve the Christ in every one of those others who differ from us, who suffer, and who stand in want.

Steve Waring of the Living Church reports here on a presentation by David Booth Beers, chancellor of the Episcopal Church, to the inaugural meeting of the Episcopal Majority last week.

The headline reads: Chancellor: Episcopal Church Will Prevail in Communion and Courts

It's a complex piece, so it is hard to choose an excerpt. Read it all.

Anglicans Online gently disputes Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh's recent statement that he and his supporters feel that "our church has been taken away from us."

Get Religion is a blog that covers and critiques the mainstream media's coverage of religion. Some days, I pick up valuable perspective when I visit. On other days, I am reminded that the site is bankrolled by Howard "Stoney" Ahmanson. Today's visit fell into the second category.

An entry on the multi-colored vestments that Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori wore at her investiture passes on an allegation--that Bishop Gene Robinson left his wife for a man--that has by now been so thoroughly discredited that publishing it constitutes either reckless disregard for the truth, or a level ignorance about the issue that ought to disqualify one as a commentator.

The same posting also states that our new PB doesn't think that Jesus is "necessary" for salvation. I've discussed this peculiar notion one item downblog. On the complex issue of soteriology, the folks who claim to "get" religion are trafficking in analysis too shallow to wet your toenails.

Note too that the item is illustrated by a photograph of a stole that Bishop Jefferts Schori never wore, a stole that the GR people don't know if she ever would wear. Some days GR criticizes the press, today it is engaging in the tactics it normally deplores.

There's a headline that just pulls you right in, huh? Nothin' but readers, as Ben Bradlee used to say.

Anyway, as soteriology (the study of the doctrine of salvation) is not a word I get to us everyday, I just want to savor its appearance for a moment.

Moving on: In the days leading up to Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori’s investiture, the Anglican right made a great deal of noise about interviews she gave to Time magazine, and to Robin Young of NPR’s show Here and Now.

Time:

Q. Is belief in Jesus the only way to get to heaven?

Bishop Jefferts Schori: We who practice the Christian tradition understand him as our vehicle to the divine. But for us to assume that God could not act in other ways is, I think, to put God in an awfully small box.

NPR:

Robin Young: So you’re saying there are other ways to God.

Bishop Jefferts Schori: Human communities have always searched for relationship that which is beyond them…with the ultimate... with the divine. For Christians, we say that our route to God is through Jesus. That doesn’t mean that a Hindu doesn’t experience God except through Jesus. It says that Hindus and people of other faith traditions approach God through their own cultural contexts; they relate to God, they experience God in human relationships, as well as ones that transcend human relationships

* * *

I am not going to transcribe the voluminous and frequently vitriolic responses that these interviews prompted in the usual quarters. Nor am I going to dispute that many evangelical Christians believe, in good faith, that salvation requires an explicit embrace of Jesus Christ as your personal savior. But that view is not normative outside evangelical precincts, and I think many of those shooting spitballs at our new presiding bishop know that.

For instance, The Catechism of the Catholic Church, says as follows:

"The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind’s judge on the last day."

"Those who no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or His Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience—those too may achieve eternal salvation."

Pope John Paul II said something similar in Dominus Iesus (2000):

"Nevertheless, God, who desires to call all peoples to himself in Christ and to communicate to them the fullness of his revelation and love, "does not fail to make himself present in many ways, not only to individuals, but also to entire peoples through their spiritual riches, of which their religions are the main and essential expression even when they contain ‘gaps, insufficiencies and errors'". Therefore, the sacred books of other religions, which in actual fact direct and nourish the existence of their followers, receive from the mystery of Christ the elements of goodness and grace which they contain."

"Theology today, in its reflection on the existence of other religious experiences and on their meaning in God's salvific plan, is invited to explore if and in what way the historical figures and positive elements of these religions may fall within the divine plan of salvation. In this undertaking, theological research has a vast field of work under the guidance of the Church's Magisterium. The Second Vatican Council, in fact, has stated that: "the unique mediation of the Redeemer does not exclude, but rather gives rise to a manifold cooperation which is but a participation in this one source"."

"With respect to the way in which the salvific grace of God — which is always given by means of Christ in the Spirit and has a mysterious relationship to the Church — comes to individual non-Christians, the Second Vatican Council limited itself to the statement that God bestows it "in ways known to himself"."

Some of the most interesting thinking on the issue of "salvation outside the church" was done by the late Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner, who developed the notion of the "anonymous Christian," which he described as follows:

"Anonymous Christianity means that a person lives in the grace of God and attains salvation outside of explicitly constituted Christianity… Let us say, a Buddhist monk… who, because he follows his conscience, attains salvation and lives in the grace of God; of him I must say that he is an anonymous Christian; if not, I would have to presuppose that there is a genuine path to salvation that really attains that goal, but that simply has nothing to do with Jesus Christ. But I cannot do that. And so, if I hold if everyone depends upon Jesus Christ for salvation, and if at the same time I hold that many live in the world who have not expressly recognized Jesus Christ, then there remains in my opinion nothing else but to take up this postulate of an anonymous Christianity."

For a fuller explanation of Rahner's thinking go here and here. He and Hans urs Von Balthasar (whose own thinking on the question of universal salvation is so complex that even his admirerers can't agree on what it says) had vigorous debates on this issue, so I am not suggesting that Rahner's view is beyond dispute, but it is not "unorthodox" and neither is Bishop Jefferts Schori.

I have no quarrel with people who want to believe that accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior is the only way to heaven. But it simply is not the case that those who disagree with you are in rebellion against some long-settled and universally accepted issue of Christian doctrine.

If you are just checking in after a weekend offline, our coverage of the investiture and seating of Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori begins ten items down blog with an entry called "Bright brisk and buzzing," and ends here, with a story from Episcopal News Service about two of ur local parishes, St. Thomas's on DuPont Circle and St. Alban's here on the Cathedral close, in hosting young people in town for the historic event.

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori was officially seated today in an 11 a. m. liturgy at Washington National Cathedral. Episcopal News Service has the story. The full text of her sermon is here.

A taste:

"Saints are those who are vulnerable to the gut-wrenching pain of this world. Some of us have to be seized by the throat or thrown into the tomb before we can begin to find that depth of compassion. And perhaps unless we are, we won't leave our comfortable narrow lives - or our remarkably nasty ones - to wake up and begin to answer that pain."

National Public Radio's coverage of yesterday's investiture is here.

The morning newspapers are full of stories about yesterday's investiture of Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori. We can expect reporters to feel what we feel on occasions like this one. For those of us accustomed to worrying about the vitality and viability of our Church, yesterday felt like a turning point, the end of an era of anxiety, and the beginning of a braver day. We didn't look like a troubled church yesterday; we looked joyful and confident, and Christian to our core. A British friend of mine who was at the service said, with tongue somewhat in cheek, "I think the Episcopal Church should send a mission to England."

Obviously mine is an intensely subjective viewpoint, and it isn't captured in the stories, below, although some carry certain hints. So it falls to us to make clear what a momentous day yesterday was. Ready?

Update: The Guardian.

Here are stories from The Los Angeles Times The Washington Times, The New York Times and The Washington Post.

Additional coverage from Episcopal News Service includes a piece on international guests, and one of the few articles that explored the views of people attending the service.

ENS's updated photo galleries, including high resolution pictures, are here.

Update: see the photographs on the National Cathedral's site. Number 8 is a real beauty.

Fabulous photographs from the investiture of Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori as the 26th Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church can be found here. And I am told that there will be more to come, so visit often.

Mary Frances Schjoenberg's story for ENS is here.

Ninety minutes after her investiture, Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori is still standing in the midst of the nave of Washington National Cathedral, greeting well-wishers. The lovely carillon that rang for almost an hour after the Eucharist has ended. The food is all gone at the receptions on the close. In fact just about everybody has cleared out except me and the folks from Episcopal News Service who are working in our conference room. Meanwhile, the sedan that is taking her wherever she is going next is sitting outside the Cathedral. The driver has the motor running, but I don't think he's going anywhere anytime soon.

Rachel Zoll of AP's story is here. There is a nice picture here.

The New York Times, Washington Post, Washington Times, Guardian and Religion News Service were on hand, so I sholuld have more later. There were any number of riveting images that graced the eye during the Eucharist--images that preach, if you know what I mean--and I will keep an eye out for those as well.

I was hoping to come back from the investiture with perceptive things to say, but I am awash in good feeling and incapable of analysis. I will start posting links soon. It feels very good to be an Episcopalian today.

Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori's investiture as Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church beings at 11 a. m. EST, and can be viewed here. The service leaflet is here.

It is alliteration day here at Daily Episcopalian, a bright, brisk morning on the buzzing close of Washington National Cathedral. I got here just after 8:15 and found a knot of about thirty people already queued up at the west entrance of the Cathedral for the opening of the big front doors, which is scheduled for 10. Taxi cabs streamed down south road, and here and there, I spotted bishops with their rochets and chemires (spell check wants to make that rockets and chemises) slung over their shoulders in dry cleaning bags walking toward the Way of Peace entrance on the south side of their church.

I attended some of the Episcopal Majority gathering yesterday and the Episcopal Divinity School reception (they were gracious enough to serve as an unofficial gathering place from members of Episcopal Communicators) at a hotel on Woodley Road. I missed the presentation by David Booth Beers, chancellor of the Episcopal Church, on property issues, but I caught up with Nan Cobbey of Episcopal Life and Steve Waring of the Living Church when I caught up with him at the reception he gave me the distinct impression that Beers had committed news, so I will be watching the Living Church site for further developments.

My initial impression, based mostly on scuttlebutt and some brief conversations with friends who work and Church Center and in the secular press, is that Bishop Jefferts Schori's administration, for lack of a better word, will be marked by more directness and openness that was Bishop Griswold's, and that this will reduce anxiety levels in the church.

Here's a round up of recent news:

Pat McCaughan of ENS covered the Episcopal Majority meeting. EM's own coverage of its events is here. Mark Harris, who has been elected to the EM steering committee says...

Rachel Zoll of the AP and Jane Lampman of the Christian Science Monitor have written profiles of Bishop Jefferts Schori.

Meanwhile, as Steve Levin reports in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: The Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh voted yesterday at its annual diocesan convention to withdraw from a national church province and seek alternative oversight.

I don't so much mind that they voted to do this. I take it as an expression of conscience. But that they held their convention on this particular weekend will be interpreted in most quarters, as petty.

“Today’s actions are clearly illegal under the canon law of our church,” observed Dr. Joan R. Gundersen, president of Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh (PEP), the group that led opposition to the resolution.” The constitution and canons of The Episcopal Church allow for only one Presiding Bishop, one House of Bishops, and require the General Convention to approve any change in provincial assignments. This diocese is asking individuals outside The Episcopal Church to intervene where they have no authority,” said Dr. Gundersen.

PEP's release is here.

Now I am going to go look for Stephen Bates of the Guardian. Have you ever been to a reunion at which they give a prize to the person who traveled the greatest distance to be there? Steve flew in last night from Islamabad where he was covering Prince Charles' trip to Pakistan. I am sure he will need some coffee.

I visit the Anglican Scotist's blog every now and then, and always learn something. He offers a very learned critique of some arguments regarding heresy advanced by Matt Kennedy of Stand Firm in Faith here, and here. Among the Scotist's several virtues is his ability to ground all his arguments in classical theology. Have a look.

Cathy Lee Grossman of USA Today features the work of Diana Butler Bass in her story on growing mainline parishes in today's paper. Diana, a member of Epiphany Church in downtown D. C. will be the featured speaker at our diocesan convention in late January. Here latest book is Christianity for the Rest of Us. As Grossman explains:

"Bass set out on a Lilly Foundation grant to find 50 mainline churches rooted in the Gospel, rich in worship, strong in social justice, creative in spirituality and radiating hospitality. Instead, she found 1,000 thriving congregations from California to Virginia."

The story is worth a read and so is the book.

A variety of meetings and forums are scheduled in Washington this week to coincide with the investiture of Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori of Nevada as our new presiding bishop. Episcopal News Service has this story, which includes news of an upcoming meeting of Bishops Working for a Just Society, a group co-founded by Bishop John Bryson Chane, and the initial meeting of the Episcopal Majority, among others.

Meanwhile, Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire will be the featured speaker at a forum on Working for Justice and the Common Good: The Struggle for Inclusion, Diversity and Equality Within Religion. It is being held on Thursday at 9 a. m. at the Center for American Progress, 1333 H St. NW.

As I’ve mentioned below, The Living Church is reporting that David Booth Beers, chancellor of the Episcopal Church "has written identical letters to the chancellors of two traditionalist dioceses demanding that they change language “that can be read as cutting against an ‘unqualified accession’ to the Constitution and Canons of the General Convention of The Episcopal Church."

This report has generated an outpouring of blog-based analysis and reaction. Father Jake likes the move, and doesn’t care for Bishop Iker’s response. Mark Harris says the chancellor is doing his job. The Admiral of Morality, a delightful newcomer, suggests, like Jake, that the letters signal “the arrival of a new Presiding Bishop who, fresh from Canterbury, is prepared to act boldly and swiftly in the name of Christ and His Episcopal Church.”

Commenters on Kendall Harmon’s blog aren’t happy, but aren’t alarmed either. I think they understand that nothing definitive has happened here. The rhetoric is more reich-related on Stand Firm in Faith. (I can understand being upset about this, as it seems to represent a change in course at Church Center, but all this jackboot business, please)

I generally agree with Jake and Mark on the issues confronting our church, but I am more uneasy than they about these letters. My unease may be rooted in reasons peculiar to myself, or to a person in my profession, but I think it hints at a broader problem: namely, the seeming unwillingness of our leadership to recognize the virtue of dealing more openly with the press and with Church members regarding the problems before us.

When your organization is involved in an ongoing controversy, it is extremely advantageous to be able to control the content and timing of news stories. The Episcopal right understands this well, and keeps creating well-timed news events that get reporters’ attention, and foster the impression that they are on the march while the Church leadership is in retreat. Here was an occasion, however, where both the content of the next news story (“Chancellor sends letters”) and the timing of the news story (a clock that starts ticking when the letters are mailed) were entirely in Church Center’s control.

If it is a given that the content of the letters will become public, the most media-savvy thing to do is to release the letters broadly with an explanation of why you were doing what you were doing and why you were doing it now. This not only insures that your side of the story leads whatever pieces might be written, it also guarantees that your interpretive framing of the story will be taken seriously.

The other benefits of this approach include damping down rumor and speculation--People are less likely to wonder about your intentions if you explain them; demonstrating that you have nothing to hide or fear; and reassuring the members of your organization that the organization can be counted on to report upon its own activities in a timely and relatively forthright way.

If you choose not to follow this approach, and the content of the letters come out from a different source, not only don’t you reap the advantages I’ve outlined, you reap their inverse.

Controlling the timing of a news event is also a tremendous advantage because it allows you to make sure that the story breaks when it does you the most good or least the harm—depending on the type of story it is. If, for instance, you are about to introduce the new leader of your organization to the general public, if that person is more or less a blank public slate, if you are eager to sell this individual’s tenure as the beginning of a fresh new day, and if you have spent a great deal of time and a little bit of money to build the stage on which this new leader will make her entrance, then controlling the timing of a potentially distracting news story means that you can make sure it breaks after the big event. Otherwise you turn advantage into disadvantage by forcing your new leader to talk abut precisely the issues you are trying to move past.

Finally, a release that places an individual development in a broader context---We are doing X so that we can (do/avoid) Y and therefore achieve Z.—persuades your potentially anxious membership (which is getting its information about your intentions from skeptical, unfriendly or uninformed sources) that there is a steady hand on the wheel, and an alert navigator in the passenger’s seat. In the absence of such reassurance, the passengers are left to study the unfamiliar scenery rolling by outside the window and trust that the driver is heading home by another way.

When we don’t communicate information, we communicate anxiety.

People don’t come to church to have their anxieties amplified.

Are we there yet?

Thing 1

From ENS: The second of two Sunday bulletin inserts about the prayer and celebrations surrounding the investiture and seating of Nevada Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori as the 26th Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church is available for use by congregations.

Designed for use in congregations on November 5, this second insert features Jefferts Schori's greeting to the Episcopal Church. In it she invites Church to widen 'shalom' by taking up U.N. Millennium Development Goals.

Thing 2, also from ENS

"Final preparations for the November 4 live webcast of Presiding Bishop-elect Katharine Jefferts Schori's investiture are nearing completion. Satellite time has been booked, production crews are in place and excitement is growing.

"The hardest thing to determine is exactly how many people plan to view the webcast live," said Mike Collins, director of broadcast and multimedia for the church. "We are asking people to register for the webcast in order to get a fairly accurate number of potential participants. We want to make certain there is more than enough bandwidth available, to ensure that the service is viewable to everyone interested."

"You don't have to register to view the webcast, and if you click the link at 11 a.m. on November 4, you aren't going to be stopped to fill out a form before you're able to view the service," said Collins.
"Registering will help us be good stewards and provide the best viewing experience for the most people."

Viewers are invited to register at webcast@episcopalchurch.org and leave their contact information as well as their preferred streaming media player.

Collins also suggested a few other steps to ensure that viewers don't encounter technical difficulties on November 4. "It's a good idea to make sure your streaming media player of choice, either Windows Media Player or Real Player, is up to date and working properly," he said. "I would also encourage people to be aware of what streaming rate works best on their system. There are things that could happen on the user's end over which we have no control, including their connection speed or how many users might be online from the same location.

"If you are using a cable modem, DSL, or some other newer technology you will probably want to choose our high bandwidth option. If you connect to the internet through a standard phone line modem, the low bandwidth option will be your best bet," Collins added. "And there is always the audio-only option for those who desire it.

Steve Waring of The Living Church writes that David Booth Beers, chancellor of the Episcopal Church "has written identical letters to the chancellors of two traditionalist dioceses demanding that they change language “that can be read as cutting against an ‘unqualified accession’ to the Constitution and Canons of the General Convention of The Episcopal Church."

Bishop Jack Iker of Forth Worth calls the timing of the letter "shocking," coming as it does just two days before Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori becomes our new presiding bishop. But folks who don't think that dioceses have the right to decide which of the Church's canons they will comply with think it is shocking that it took so long for these letters to be written.

Mark Harris and Simon Sarmiento are doing the hard work on what hte latest development in the Diocese of Dallas saga is allabout. And I am especially grateful, because, well, life is short. Sarah Dylan Bruer also has a comment.

Some things are happening on the Episcopal right these days that are either significant or merely curious, and I am not sure which.

Not long ago, Canon Ellis Brust, formerly the executive director of the American Anglican Council, left that position to become executive director of the Anglican Mission in America. This is especially curious because just a few weeks before his departure from the AAC, Canon Brust was one of two unsuccessful candidates for Bishop of South Carolina, a diocese with close ties to the AAC.

To make things a little more peculiar, the AMiA is involved in a bitter property dispute with South Carolina. So Brust went from being a candidate to lead one party in a law suit, to leading the opposing party in that same suit in the blink of an eye. This is the first of the events that I hope someone can interpret for me.

The second event concerns the decision of the Diocese of Dallas to withdraw from the request to the Archbishop of Canterbury for alternative primatial oversight. There is news of this development on the Web site of the Diocese of Pittsburgh.

It says …”the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh has released the full text of the appeal for Alternate Primatial Oversight (APO). The appeal, which lays out the request of the dioceses of Pittsburgh, Central Florida, Dallas, Fort Worth, San Joaquin, South Carolina and Springfield, was sent to the Archbishop of Canterbury on July 20. It explains why the dioceses involved believe that APO is necessary and what that oversight might look like. Since July, Dallas has withdrawn its request, but Quincy has joined the other appellants.”

(The illustrious Jeffrey Weiss has a story on the Diocese of Dallas’ recent convention here. And Simon Sarmiento is on the case here.)

I have no idea why the Diocese of Dallas has changed its mind on APO, or why it hasn’t followed the lead of several dioceses that seem to be pursuing the ecclesial equivalent of secession. Neither do I have any sense of whether this represents fragmentation within the Network, or a decision to pursue different strategies toward a similar goal, or something else entirely. So I’d like someone to fill me in. Volunteers?

Finally, Mark Harris has called attention to a recent speech by Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh, moderator of the Anglican Communion Network.

In this speech Bishop Duncan says several things that I consider silly, which I don’t want to dwell on, one thing that confuses me, and one that gives me some hope.

The confusing bit is where he says: “There are two churches claiming to be the Episcopal Church.” Putting aside for the moment the fact that I think this claim, if it exists, is preposterous, this isn’t what I understood the majority of conservative Episcopalians to be saying up to this point. I have understood people to say the Episcopal Church was in error (to put in gently) and needed to be expelled from the Anglican Communion and replaced with an alternate jurisdiction. I have understood people to say the Episcopal Church was an apostate church and that its dissidents should become members of other Anglican province, and I have understood people to say that at a minimum a parallel province needed to be established within the Episcopal Church for those who dissent from its current direction.

But I haven’t heard anyone other than Bishop Duncan say: We are the Episcopal Church and you are not. I’d be interested to know whether this contention is widely supported.

That said, this piece of his address tht made my ears perk up:

“We have reached the moment where a mediation to achieve disengagement is the only way forward. I believe that the other Episcopal Church – the one not represented in this convocation – has finally also come to that conclusion, as well. I believe that a mediated settlement will be in place by this time next year, or that the principals will be well on their way to such a settlement. How can we set one another free to proclaim the gospel (the Truth) as we, so differently, understand it? How can we bless one another as cousins, rather than oppress one another as brothers? The day for a serious and wide-ranging mediation has arrived.”

I have been pushing the idea of a settlemtent to resolve our current dispute, and it is a subject I hope to return to relatively soon, but not before I have something coherent to say. Unlike Bishop Duncan, I probably wouldn't favor mediation, but negotiation. That said, I am glad to see that the bishop isn't urging his supporters to go to the mattresses, legally speaking.

ENS has a story that beigns:

In letters sent October 19 to bishops with jurisdiction and all the Episcopal Church's diocesan standing committees, Via Media USA argues that the episcopacy of the bishop-elect of the Diocese of South Carolina "would represent a threat to the unity of our church and to the cohesion" of the diocese.

Lionel Deimel's essay: "No Consents, a Crucial Test for the Episcopal Church is here.

Father Jake talks about consents here, and Mark Harris weighs in here.

I don't have any insight on what our Standing Committee will do here in D. C. At General Convention Bishop Chane opposed resolution B033, (the manner of life resolution) by saying that he would consent "after prayer and careful consideration of any person duly elected by a diocese in this Church.”

As you may have heard, the population of the United States now tops 300 million. The Episcopal Church claims about 2.3 million members if I am remembering correctly. That's less than one percent of the population. Meaning, if I remember my high school statistics correctly, than were I in a room with 99 other Americans chosen at random, I'd be the only Episcopalian. I bring this up not to lament the size of our church, I do that in various other places, but to pose a question.

If I want to double the number of Episcopalians in that room, I need to persuade only one other person to join the Church. What's the best way to do that? Should I speak broadly to the other 99 folks in the room, or should I concentrate my efforts on the few people whom I sense are most likely to give me a hearing?

What are the implications of my choice for parochial, diocesan and Church-wide evangelism and advertising efforts?

Here's an opportunity to get to know Mark Harris as something more than a blog link.

He will lead "The Matrix and the Compass Rose" workshop at the meeting of The Episcopal Majority on November 3 at St. Columba's Church in northwest D.C. According to Episcopal Majority:

"His session will address the assumptions that have held the Episcopal Church together, how they are changing, and how The Episcopal Majority can help guide the Church through these times."

Mark is a member of the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church and serves on the Standing Commission on World Mission. He was a member of the staff of the Episcopal Church Center for 12 years and has written The Challenge of Change: The Anglican Communion in the Post-Modern Era.

In other TEM news:

David Booth Beers, Chancellor to the Presiding Bishop, will lead the "Legal Issues Confronting Parishes and Dioceses" workshop at the meeting of The Episcopal Majority on November 3 in Washington, D.C. Mr. Beers is a partner in the law firm of Goodwin-Proctor in Washington, D.C. As Chancellor to the Presiding Bishop, he has an extensive non-profit practice that is both national and international in scope.

Click here for more info on the meeting.

The Rev. Matt Kennedy of Stand Firm in Faith has been graciously hosting a conversation on that site about whether an amicable separation might be the best solution to the crisis that currently besets the Episcopal Church. The conversation grew out of an exchange that he and I had here, and, in general, I've found it edifying. Matt and I are clearly not allies on the issues that divide the Church and the Communion, but I value the contribution he's made in hosting this conversation, and I encourage you to take a look at it and weigh in either here or there.

Update: I've finished speaking my piece, over there. Done talking, but still listening.

Episcopal Majority, which describes itself as "a grassroots organization committed to the values and vitality of The Episcopal Church" that works to "neutralize the negative influence of the American Anglican Council (AAC), the Anglican Communion Network (ACN), and related groups" is holding its first national gathering at St. Columba's Church in northwest Washington, D. C. on Friday November 3 and Saturday November 4.

Bishop Jon Bruno of Los Angeles will be the featured speaker on Friday.

An agenda and online registration are here. A statement of pruprose and a partial list of supporters are here. Mark Harris, who I seem to be linking to a lot today, has an excellent post on the importance of the meeting here.

Drop in on Beliefnet this evening and you find the headline: Episcopalians May Say No to Weddings. The link leads to this story from G. Jeffrey MacDonald of Religion News Service, which begins: “Episcopal clergy in Massachusetts would give up their centuries-old authority to conduct marriage ceremonies under a new proposal aimed at leveling the playing field for gay couples seeking a church blessing.”

I've already mentioned that I think this is a bad idea, but I didn't discuss this initiative's potential for negative publicity.

The Episcopal Church can, in time, win the debate about same-sex blessings, and eventually, perhaps, the debate about gay marriage if it makes clear its desire to open a cherished institution to a population that has been unfairly denied admission. This is, essentially, a conservative, pro-marriage argument, and it has been embraced by numerous high-profile conservatives, including Andrew Sullivan and David Brooks.

The Episcopal Church will lose the debate about same-sex blessings if it appears to be undermining the institution for political purposes, and it will lose the support of many—perhaps most, of the people in its pews, if it appears to downplay the sacred nature of the lifelong commitment spouses make to one another.

Whatever worthy goals the folks who back this initiative hope to achieve, what they have achieved so far is a headline that reads: Episcopalians May Say No to Weddings. And that hurts.

The Chicago Tribune ran a story yesterday by Manya A. Brachear about a liberal parish in the conversative Diocese of Springfield asking for delegated episcopal oversight.

I read through the piece too quickly and missed what may be the most significant development: Peter Beckwith, the bishop of Springfield, is refusing to confirm any candidates from the parish in question.

The key paragraph: "In November 2005, Bennett contacted Beckwith to ask if he was opposed to confirming a lesbian who wished to join the Church. At that point, Bennett said, the bishop declared he would confirm no one in the parish because 'the faith was not being taught' there."

Am I wrong in thinking that even in these contentious times that this constitues derelection fo episcopal duty? I'm pretty sure that if a liberal bishop refused to confirm someone who disagreed with him on issues of human sexuality, we'd hear about it.

Michael Paulson of The Boston Globe has a story that begins:

"In a novel approach to the tensions that have accompanied the same-sex marriage debate in many religious denominations, the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts this month will consider getting out of the marriage business.

A group of local Episcopal priests, saying that the gay marriage debate has intensified their longtime concern about acting as agents of the state by officiating at marriages, is proposing that the Episcopal Church adopt a new approach. Any couples qualified to get married under state law could be married by a justice of the peace, and then, if they want a religious imprimatur for their marriage, they could come to the Episcopal Church seeking a blessing from a priest."

I am not ready, and perhaps not qualified, to discuss the theological merits of the argument that these priests are making. But as someone who is always looking for way to get unchurched people to cross the threshold of our churches, can I say that this strikes me as a truly terrible idea? Why should we pursue a strategy that would result in fewer people turning to us at important times in their lives? Why would we want to reduce the number of occasions on which people see us doing the sort of thing that we typically do extremely well?

And while I am reeling off rhetorical questions, would anyone like to bet me that a move like this would be enormously unpopular with the people in our pews, regardless of their views on gay marriage?

(Hat tip to Kendall.)

Father Matthew of St. Paul's Church in Yonkers has ventured out onto YouTube with some entertaining results. Meanwhile, the Rev. Ken Howard, rector of St. Nicholas Church in Darnestown, MD, has started a blog called Curb your Dogma. And the Rev. Michael Hopkins, formerly of our diocese, has a new blog, From Glory into Glory, which includes an excellent sermon "The Primates or 'the mikros.'"

The Washington Post has a front page story today about "outside groups" with commercial and ideological agendas shoveling unprecedented amounts of money into closely contested elections.

I mention this not to make a point about campaign finance reform, but to point out that pieces of this nature are a commonplace of political journalism. The premise is that you can learn a lot about candidates by examining the list of their financial supporters. This particular piece also raises another question: Is the democratic process distorted when a candidate owes more to wealthy individuals and organizations outside his or her district than to the voters within?

The same issues are worth examining in church politics. So if you haven't read Following the Money: Donors and Activists on the Anglican Right, give it a look. It is useful to know that the people who fund the American Anglican Council and the Institute on Religion and Democracy are also the people funding the drive to teach creationism in the schools, to deny that human activity plays a role in global warming, to roll back minimum wage laws and a host of other causes dear to movement conservatives. It is also useful to consider the future of our faith communities if wealthy individuals and organizations with no connection to these communities continue to exercise significant financial influence in internal church disputes.