The Lead

For Anglicans who want to avoid decisions

Today in Comparative Ecclesial Polities, we look at the General Synod of the Church of England, which is now in session, but spent most of today just warming up. Riazat Butt, soon to be late of the Guardian, kept this live blog on the day's events.

Required reading for today's installment comes from Butt's colleague at the Guardian, Andrew Brown. It begins:

Returning from a General Synod meeting in York with a story to write, I once typed "The Church of England yesterday decided", and fell immediately into a profound sleep over my laptop. I was entirely sober at the time. It's just the effect that synod has; and I'm beginning to wonder whether this isn't part of its real purpose.
The General Synod now meets only twice a year. This week it's in Church House, in Westminster. In theory it is there to make the decisions that parliament can no longer be bothered with about the Church of England; but in fact it's a device to make decision-making more or less impossible.

Some Christian churches can't make decisions because they don't have decision-making bodies. The Baptists are the best example of this. Some can't make big decisions because they think that all the interesting ones were made by about 787 AD. That would be the Orthodox – although they do in fact meet in synods to discuss other matters. The Roman Catholics don't believe in democracy as a form of church government, but the bishops gather every century or so to make decisions too large even for a pope.

But the Church of England can't even decide whether it wants to make decisions. The arguments about women bishops that will take up much of this week illustrate the point very well, because what the opponents deny is that the synod should ever be capable of deciding who is or isn't a bishop. For that matter, they don't believe that the synod should decide who is or isn't a priest. So what appear to be wrangles about what decision to make are in fact disputes about whether to make a decision at all.

Is there something about unicameral legislatures that include bishops, clergy and laypeople that bring on this kind of paralysis, or are the problems Brown sees with the synod particular to the Church of England?

Posted by Jim Naughton on February 6, 2012 6:25 PM | Permalink | Digg this | Comments (4)

Uganda's awful anti-gay bill is back

Warren Throckmorton links to a Ugandan TV report suggesting the bill may be taken up in Parliament tomorrow.

Posted by Jim Naughton on February 6, 2012 5:14 PM | Permalink | Digg this | Comments (0)

An elevator speech for the Episcopal Church

In a conversation on the email list-serv maintained by the Episcopal Communicators, a member noted that he had recently come across some language describing the church in its brand style guide. Turns out he was referring to the "brand strategy statement. It reads:

"For those looking for more meaning and deepened spirituality, The Episcopal Church offers honest and unconditional acceptance, which removes barriers to Jesus Christ and permits belonging to an authentic church community."

A brand strategy statement is not the same thing as an elevator speech--a verbal description of your cause/organization etc., that you could recite to someone in the course of an elevator ride--but, like an elevator speech, it is an attempt to distill what is best and most attractive about your organization into a couple of punchy sentences.

What would your elevator speech for the Episcopal Church sound like? How about your elevator speech for your parish?

Posted by Jim Naughton on February 6, 2012 2:06 PM | Permalink | Digg this | Comments (6)

Reforming General Convention? Or watering it down?

The Diocese of Georgia passed a resolution over the weekend calling up on the church to re-imagine General Convention. This section interested me.

By design, General Convention is the largest gathering of the people of the Episcopal Church. This extraordinary opportunity should be used to empower and equip the church and its leaders for mission and evangelism in God’s world by creating a balance between legislative deliberation and a focus on renewal of the church. This can be accomplished by providing training and inspiration for mission and evangelism through intentional leadership training, sharing of “best practices”, storytelling, networking and engaging in mission in the host city – being the hands and feet of Jesus Christ: A community in action.

I am in favor of training more people in the church to talk about their faith. If it can be demonstrated that this is best done at large national gatherings, rather than on the regional, diocesan or parochial level, I'd have no problem supporting a churchwide initiative. I have two problems with this proposal, however. The first is that we vote for deputies to represent us in a legislature. We should not give them other duties for which they might not be especially qualified. The person who excels as a representative is not necessarily the same person who excels as an evangelist of teacher of evangelists. The second is that one of the prime complaints about the convention is that there is not enough time to consider all of the legislation. Giving the deputies additional duties will only make this worse.

So, two categories of questions to get our conversation started:

1. What is the best way to train people to speak about their faith? National gatherings? Provincial meetings? How will it trickle down to people in parishes?

2. Does anybody else think that the emphasis on doing other things at General Convention is an attempt to diminish the convention's authority? At the last Executive Council meeting, Bishop Stacy Sauls, who preached at Georgia's convention, called for a conversation about church restructuring in which "nothing was off the table." I find this heartening, but so far, nothing is on the table except minimizing the opportunities for lay people and clergy to participate in the governance of the church.

As someone who thinks the House of Deputies played the leading role on a number of the most important issues to confront the church in recent decades, I have a significant problem with this, but I sense that I am in a minority. What's good about tilting the balance of authority in the church toward the Office of the Presiding Bishop?

Posted by Jim Naughton on February 6, 2012 11:09 AM | Permalink | Digg this | Comments (10)

In Indianapolis, standing up to human trafficking

From the sexual-slavery eradication project Shared Hope International, a grim reminder about what also happens other than the Big Game when folks gather to celebrate their teams.

Pimp-controlled commercial sexual exploitation of children is linked to escort and massage services, private dancing, drinking and photographic clubs, major sporting and recreational events, major cultural events, conventions, and tourist destinations.
Sporting event, convention and concert attendees are a target market for commercial sex venues. Advertisement cards are handed out to attendees promising VIP treatment at the various “Gentlemen’s Clubs” and discount entry cards are distributed at sporting events, concerts and other events. Additionally, hotel’s courtesy guest shuttles have been observed providing transportation for guests to strip clubs, further facilitating the commercial sex market.

Barb Boerggoetz of The Indianapolis Star writes that although Indianapolis and the Super Bowl certainly do not form exceptions, thanks to help from some groups of women religious (in particular the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Jospeh in La Grange Park, Tipton, Indiana and Kalamazoo, Michigan), attacking the problem might lead to less pervasive practice.

From La Grange Suburban Life:

Hotels in the Indianapolis area are better equipped to recognize and help victims of human trafficking thanks to an initiative launched before Sunday’s Super Bowl by a group of 11 orders of Catholic nuns, including those in La Grange Park, in collaboration with state and local officials and organizations.
Among them were members of the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph in La Grange Park, Tipton, Ind., and Kalamazoo, Mich.

Of the 220 hotels that the women contacted, 200 hotel mangers provided responses to questions asked by members of the religious orders. As a result of these phone calls, seven hotels requested training prior to the Super Bowl to help their employees recognize trafficking situations and how to assist victims.

“We are very gratified by the responses from hotel managers and pleased that they made time to talk and work with us in this very busy season,” said Immaculate Heart of Mary Sister Ann Oestreich, co-chair of the Coalition for Corporate Responsibility for Indiana and Michigan.

A few facts mentioned in Boerggoetz's article:

Human trafficking (sex and labor) is tied as the second largest and fastest growing criminal industry in the world, just behind the arms trade.
$32 billion is generated annually by the human-trafficking industry.
About 75 to 80 percent of human trafficking is for sex.
Nationally, 2,515 investigations into trafficking were opened by Department of Justice Anti-Trafficking Task Force from 2008 to 2010, including 239 in the Midwest; 76 of those were opened by Indiana law enforcement or service providers.
The average age children are first used/manipulated into prostitution is 12 to 14 years old.

Posted by Torey Lightcap on February 6, 2012 5:55 AM | Permalink | Digg this | Comments (1)

Super Bowl distractions

I was one of "those preachers" who mentioned the Super Bowl during church today.

(My blog is called One Step Closer: Religion and Popular Culture. Feel free to visit sometime, but the whole sermon's here for your convenience. Hope the sermon speaks to you, and enjoy the game!)

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