Notes from the Vestry's Debriefing on GC 2006
June/30/2006 11:37 AM | Permalink
Beloved:
The Vestry of Christ Episcopal Church met on Tuesday night to deal with some business and debrief on the events surrounding General Convention 2006. You have a deeply spiritual, wise and committed Vestry. The conversation was wide ranging, thoughtful, responsible and at moments profound.
Having in mind that we will have many more of these types of ‘listenings’, or rather ‘ hearings’, I wanted to pass on some notes on our discussion and remember to invite you to stay after church on Sunday, July 2nd for a similar parish forum. Also, don’t forget the Community Laity and Clergy gathering at Christ Church on July 8th 9:00AM. We are hoping to have Bishop O’Neill with us at that time.
So we began where we all must begin, with the question. So what really just happened?
And the best answer I can give as one who witnessed the event is ‘The old Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States of America [ECUSA] died. In fact, it died on Tuesday when the House of Deputies could not vote to approve any response to the Windsor Report in the morning and the Bishops revealed in the afternoon that they had hardly talked about responding to the Windsor Report in terms of resolutions for the past 18 months.
What I have been having a hard time articulating for myself is exactly what happened on Wednesday; it was not that ECUSA was resuscitated; certainly not resurrected. Besides, in some prescient prophetic intuition, we had been calling ourselves by a new name anyway all convention. The Episcopal Church plain and simple: TEC. No one had voted on it; but there it the nomenclature was in all the official communications. What we saw rise on Wednesday from the ashes of Tuesday’s ‘hari-kari’ was an interim body, ‘The Episcopal Church’ firmly in Purgatory, needing the prayers and good will of the faithful.
Tuesday morning at our clergy check-in and prayer time, Fr. Art had a helpful description of the landscape of our hearts. He said words to the effect that, if in fact, we have experienced a death of a loved one in the family, affecting everyone in the family, indeed, the death of ‘the matriarch’, ‘mother church’, then we all find ourselves in a process of grieving. And as we know from that well worn paradigm of grieving each of us are bound to be in a different place. Some of us will be in denial, others of us will be filled with anger and sadness, others will be bargaining, fearful of permanent consequences, hoping to find some advantageous spot to wait out the storm, and still others will be along the road of acceptance and ready to act upon what they think the clear result looks to be.
We can see all this in the headlines of the newspapers as the various factions of the church go about their merry way as if nothing at all has happened, as if the main thing is to beat a dead horse over and over again, as if we still could spend a little more time talking this thing through on the old premises, and in clear actions on both left and right that begin to demarcate the shape of what TEC will become.
And given that the Archbishop of Canterbury has spoken, our titular head, and marked out the clearest, most principled, most generous landscape for our future, the main questions we must pursue going forward are these. Will we as a Communion agree on a Covenant based on our historic and missionary Anglican identity? And once having done so, will we, bishops and dioceses of TEC, one by one, opt-in or opt-out of being recognizable ‘constituent’ members of the Anglican Communion? Or will we walk apart and prove to be only bishops, dioceses and churches ‘associated’ with God’s global work in this communion, bearing only a vague family resemblance to our principled and life giving heritage, content to live on our self declared reserves of political and ideological purity?
Well I admit, that last sentence was a theological, diplomatic, geographical and conical mouthful. We have many miles to travel before we see those questions answered clearly. For not, it is enough to look each other in the eye and try to reach out and hold each other in our various places of grief.
And of course the people at Christ Church need to hear from their leaders in every possible venue: Christ Church will stay the course; our mission and purpose has not changed. We are here to witness to the fullness of Christ’s transforming love in the faithful and preaching of the whole counsel of God’s word, in the truthful celebration of the Sacraments celebrated in common worship that confesses a Nicene faith; and we will do so as we let God grow our two distinctives combining healing and intercessory prayer with global service in outreach to our community and in partnerships around the world.
Speaking of the context from which leaders speak, I was reminded as I listened to my Vestry that as of necessity laity and clergy will react differently to this new emerging reality. Clergy must weigh the importance of their loyalty as expressed in vows of obedience. Laity at this juncture can express themselves more from the heart and pray more interesting prayers. Early on in our discussion I thought it helpful to describe the spirit of Wednesday’s vote at convention this way. Think about it: While the clergy of the Diocese of New Hampshire voted to support their bishop in dissenting from resolution B-033, refusing to take further consecrations of bishops in same gendered relationships off the table, the laity of New Hampshire voted for it! That shows you who was saying their prayers in hopes that a new church or churches would be born out of this mess.
I was moved as I heard our laity respond by not talking about resolutions and factions, but talking about how their hearts had been affected and changed by these events. One spoke eloquently of being in a family split by all our divisions, and having been for all these years all about winners and losers, hoping desperately that our side would ‘win’, and now having the heart broken wide open letting that all go. It’s not about winning or losing, it is about doing the right thing by all sides; it is even more about taking responsibility for our part in our unhappy divisions and doing what we can do going forward to heal the church and proclaim the gospel with more honesty, risk and dependence on its supernatural transforming power.
And so we moved to embracing ‘the other side’. To admitting that we could use a little engagement with ‘the listening process’, not as a way to change minds or coerce opinion, but as a way to truly understand the burdens each of us bear and the gospel we long to witness to. Even as the Archbishop of Canterbury was affirming for us that the dispute “is not and should never be a question about the contribution of gay and lesbian people as such to the Church of God and its ministry, about the dignity and value of gay and lesbian people”. We were more than ever willing to speak out against the unnecessary bigotry and ignorance in ourselves and those around us in our parish who still speak hateful or derisive words and feelings of prejudice.
It was very clear to every Vestry member in that room that we must learn to say around here with some empathy and comprehension ‘gay and lesbian Christian’. We also agreed that one measure of our success in mission would show in an increase in the number of relationships and contacts among folk of differing sexual orientation, with an invitation to bear our mutual burdens, as well as for us all to live into the pattern of life and possibilities of transformation set forth in the Scriptures.
When the subject of future ecclesiastical relationships came up I thought to ask this question: Do we love the Diocese? And to my surprise (since I’m such a newcomer) the answer was less than a resounding ‘yea’. We recognized ways that we had isolated ourselves from the life of the Diocese and the possibility that now, especially now, God is calling Christ Church to a greater involvement in the life of the Diocese as that affiliation in the Communion hangs in the balance. Many of these relationships are being reestablished in the area of youth ministry, and no doubt there will be great opportunities ahead at Convention, in the work of the three bishop’s fund and integrating our fine candidates for ordination into an evolving Diocesan Commission on Ministry. Diocesan retreats, events and mission all came to mind.
And of course, it will mean not only praying for our bishop, but also and all the more encouraging him and challenging him to uphold the Nicene faith as we embark on the new Windsor Process leading to an Anglican Covenant. If I read our hearts that night, they were the furthest from any spirit of divorce or separation, but for a generous and necessary patience, so that we could stay on the path together.
I for one do not want to go to all this effort just to journey to some compromising place where we can ‘live into the fullest degree of communion possible’, but to find the words and structures that would allow us to live in full communion with our Anglican brothers and sisters around the globe.
Our first work then will be to read carefully over and over again the Rowan Williams ‘Letter to the Faithful’ and begin in our own context to reclaim and reshape our identity as Anglican Christians. What kind of fellowship are we, based in Word and Sacrament? How do we make decisions as a church, what and who are our authorities? Who and what do we have in view when Christ calls us to serve ‘the least of these’? These will be our questions informed by Scripture and shaped daily and weekly in our Worship. Truly we must relearn who we are and become what God is calling us to be that we are not yet.
Did I say that the ABC’s letter is important. Whenever you wonder what is happening, read it over again. It is written in such a way, that as events unfold, it will reveal more of its wisdom and guidance.
Finally, we close our meeting trying on for size the notion that we now have a vocation of prophetic intercessory prayer. This will take some time for me and others to define and model for our diverse congregation. But I am certain that God intends that all of us, in one form or another, especially our children, will learn how to serve and follow God on the wings of the prayers he is going to teach us and lead us to pray. By the way, I take the time to remind you of a lot of history, because one thing prophetic intercessory pray is about is becoming ‘history makers.’ As one theologian has put it ‘history belongs to the intercessors.’
This of course led into a familiar discussion we have as a Vestry, that of being excellent at what we do. Clearly, now is the time to preach, celebrate, invite, teach, help, serve and administer the gospel of Jesus Christ with excellence and grace on every level. Your Vestry is committed to be responsible for seeing that outcome.
Finally, there was the inkling of the thought that we could be proud of being Episcopalians once again. Once we get through our grieving and see just a little bit more of what is taking shape around us, I think we will all be surprised at how begin to feel about who we are as a church that has at least tried to face its problems and not hide away its unsightly issues. It is a rare church than can do that out in the open with as much civility. Ask around.
And let us get by God’s grace to a place where we have to stop apologizing of being who we are, for there are so many faithful people on both sides contending for the truth. Just so, I had to tell the Vestry this story, and with it I shall close: I was given a t-shirt some years back, deep blue with an Episcopal shield on the front and with some words on the back. After the events of 2003 I had stuffed it in the back of my dresser not to see the light of day. Upon coming home with two weeks of laundry to do, on Saturday I was hard pressed to find a t-shirt to make a foray out to Home Depot. There I ran into Paul Monson and I remarked to him how funny it felt to wear this t-shirt again after all that had happened. Funny, precisely because I inexplicably felt just a measure of pride in doing so, just a measure of wonder.
It is because I know that on the back of the shirt is writ in large letters: ‘Grace Happens’.
Andy+
The Vestry of Christ Episcopal Church met on Tuesday night to deal with some business and debrief on the events surrounding General Convention 2006. You have a deeply spiritual, wise and committed Vestry. The conversation was wide ranging, thoughtful, responsible and at moments profound.
Having in mind that we will have many more of these types of ‘listenings’, or rather ‘ hearings’, I wanted to pass on some notes on our discussion and remember to invite you to stay after church on Sunday, July 2nd for a similar parish forum. Also, don’t forget the Community Laity and Clergy gathering at Christ Church on July 8th 9:00AM. We are hoping to have Bishop O’Neill with us at that time.
So we began where we all must begin, with the question. So what really just happened?
And the best answer I can give as one who witnessed the event is ‘The old Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States of America [ECUSA] died. In fact, it died on Tuesday when the House of Deputies could not vote to approve any response to the Windsor Report in the morning and the Bishops revealed in the afternoon that they had hardly talked about responding to the Windsor Report in terms of resolutions for the past 18 months.
What I have been having a hard time articulating for myself is exactly what happened on Wednesday; it was not that ECUSA was resuscitated; certainly not resurrected. Besides, in some prescient prophetic intuition, we had been calling ourselves by a new name anyway all convention. The Episcopal Church plain and simple: TEC. No one had voted on it; but there it the nomenclature was in all the official communications. What we saw rise on Wednesday from the ashes of Tuesday’s ‘hari-kari’ was an interim body, ‘The Episcopal Church’ firmly in Purgatory, needing the prayers and good will of the faithful.
Tuesday morning at our clergy check-in and prayer time, Fr. Art had a helpful description of the landscape of our hearts. He said words to the effect that, if in fact, we have experienced a death of a loved one in the family, affecting everyone in the family, indeed, the death of ‘the matriarch’, ‘mother church’, then we all find ourselves in a process of grieving. And as we know from that well worn paradigm of grieving each of us are bound to be in a different place. Some of us will be in denial, others of us will be filled with anger and sadness, others will be bargaining, fearful of permanent consequences, hoping to find some advantageous spot to wait out the storm, and still others will be along the road of acceptance and ready to act upon what they think the clear result looks to be.
We can see all this in the headlines of the newspapers as the various factions of the church go about their merry way as if nothing at all has happened, as if the main thing is to beat a dead horse over and over again, as if we still could spend a little more time talking this thing through on the old premises, and in clear actions on both left and right that begin to demarcate the shape of what TEC will become.
And given that the Archbishop of Canterbury has spoken, our titular head, and marked out the clearest, most principled, most generous landscape for our future, the main questions we must pursue going forward are these. Will we as a Communion agree on a Covenant based on our historic and missionary Anglican identity? And once having done so, will we, bishops and dioceses of TEC, one by one, opt-in or opt-out of being recognizable ‘constituent’ members of the Anglican Communion? Or will we walk apart and prove to be only bishops, dioceses and churches ‘associated’ with God’s global work in this communion, bearing only a vague family resemblance to our principled and life giving heritage, content to live on our self declared reserves of political and ideological purity?
Well I admit, that last sentence was a theological, diplomatic, geographical and conical mouthful. We have many miles to travel before we see those questions answered clearly. For not, it is enough to look each other in the eye and try to reach out and hold each other in our various places of grief.
And of course the people at Christ Church need to hear from their leaders in every possible venue: Christ Church will stay the course; our mission and purpose has not changed. We are here to witness to the fullness of Christ’s transforming love in the faithful and preaching of the whole counsel of God’s word, in the truthful celebration of the Sacraments celebrated in common worship that confesses a Nicene faith; and we will do so as we let God grow our two distinctives combining healing and intercessory prayer with global service in outreach to our community and in partnerships around the world.
Speaking of the context from which leaders speak, I was reminded as I listened to my Vestry that as of necessity laity and clergy will react differently to this new emerging reality. Clergy must weigh the importance of their loyalty as expressed in vows of obedience. Laity at this juncture can express themselves more from the heart and pray more interesting prayers. Early on in our discussion I thought it helpful to describe the spirit of Wednesday’s vote at convention this way. Think about it: While the clergy of the Diocese of New Hampshire voted to support their bishop in dissenting from resolution B-033, refusing to take further consecrations of bishops in same gendered relationships off the table, the laity of New Hampshire voted for it! That shows you who was saying their prayers in hopes that a new church or churches would be born out of this mess.
I was moved as I heard our laity respond by not talking about resolutions and factions, but talking about how their hearts had been affected and changed by these events. One spoke eloquently of being in a family split by all our divisions, and having been for all these years all about winners and losers, hoping desperately that our side would ‘win’, and now having the heart broken wide open letting that all go. It’s not about winning or losing, it is about doing the right thing by all sides; it is even more about taking responsibility for our part in our unhappy divisions and doing what we can do going forward to heal the church and proclaim the gospel with more honesty, risk and dependence on its supernatural transforming power.
And so we moved to embracing ‘the other side’. To admitting that we could use a little engagement with ‘the listening process’, not as a way to change minds or coerce opinion, but as a way to truly understand the burdens each of us bear and the gospel we long to witness to. Even as the Archbishop of Canterbury was affirming for us that the dispute “is not and should never be a question about the contribution of gay and lesbian people as such to the Church of God and its ministry, about the dignity and value of gay and lesbian people”. We were more than ever willing to speak out against the unnecessary bigotry and ignorance in ourselves and those around us in our parish who still speak hateful or derisive words and feelings of prejudice.
It was very clear to every Vestry member in that room that we must learn to say around here with some empathy and comprehension ‘gay and lesbian Christian’. We also agreed that one measure of our success in mission would show in an increase in the number of relationships and contacts among folk of differing sexual orientation, with an invitation to bear our mutual burdens, as well as for us all to live into the pattern of life and possibilities of transformation set forth in the Scriptures.
When the subject of future ecclesiastical relationships came up I thought to ask this question: Do we love the Diocese? And to my surprise (since I’m such a newcomer) the answer was less than a resounding ‘yea’. We recognized ways that we had isolated ourselves from the life of the Diocese and the possibility that now, especially now, God is calling Christ Church to a greater involvement in the life of the Diocese as that affiliation in the Communion hangs in the balance. Many of these relationships are being reestablished in the area of youth ministry, and no doubt there will be great opportunities ahead at Convention, in the work of the three bishop’s fund and integrating our fine candidates for ordination into an evolving Diocesan Commission on Ministry. Diocesan retreats, events and mission all came to mind.
And of course, it will mean not only praying for our bishop, but also and all the more encouraging him and challenging him to uphold the Nicene faith as we embark on the new Windsor Process leading to an Anglican Covenant. If I read our hearts that night, they were the furthest from any spirit of divorce or separation, but for a generous and necessary patience, so that we could stay on the path together.
I for one do not want to go to all this effort just to journey to some compromising place where we can ‘live into the fullest degree of communion possible’, but to find the words and structures that would allow us to live in full communion with our Anglican brothers and sisters around the globe.
Our first work then will be to read carefully over and over again the Rowan Williams ‘Letter to the Faithful’ and begin in our own context to reclaim and reshape our identity as Anglican Christians. What kind of fellowship are we, based in Word and Sacrament? How do we make decisions as a church, what and who are our authorities? Who and what do we have in view when Christ calls us to serve ‘the least of these’? These will be our questions informed by Scripture and shaped daily and weekly in our Worship. Truly we must relearn who we are and become what God is calling us to be that we are not yet.
Did I say that the ABC’s letter is important. Whenever you wonder what is happening, read it over again. It is written in such a way, that as events unfold, it will reveal more of its wisdom and guidance.
Finally, we close our meeting trying on for size the notion that we now have a vocation of prophetic intercessory prayer. This will take some time for me and others to define and model for our diverse congregation. But I am certain that God intends that all of us, in one form or another, especially our children, will learn how to serve and follow God on the wings of the prayers he is going to teach us and lead us to pray. By the way, I take the time to remind you of a lot of history, because one thing prophetic intercessory pray is about is becoming ‘history makers.’ As one theologian has put it ‘history belongs to the intercessors.’
This of course led into a familiar discussion we have as a Vestry, that of being excellent at what we do. Clearly, now is the time to preach, celebrate, invite, teach, help, serve and administer the gospel of Jesus Christ with excellence and grace on every level. Your Vestry is committed to be responsible for seeing that outcome.
Finally, there was the inkling of the thought that we could be proud of being Episcopalians once again. Once we get through our grieving and see just a little bit more of what is taking shape around us, I think we will all be surprised at how begin to feel about who we are as a church that has at least tried to face its problems and not hide away its unsightly issues. It is a rare church than can do that out in the open with as much civility. Ask around.
And let us get by God’s grace to a place where we have to stop apologizing of being who we are, for there are so many faithful people on both sides contending for the truth. Just so, I had to tell the Vestry this story, and with it I shall close: I was given a t-shirt some years back, deep blue with an Episcopal shield on the front and with some words on the back. After the events of 2003 I had stuffed it in the back of my dresser not to see the light of day. Upon coming home with two weeks of laundry to do, on Saturday I was hard pressed to find a t-shirt to make a foray out to Home Depot. There I ran into Paul Monson and I remarked to him how funny it felt to wear this t-shirt again after all that had happened. Funny, precisely because I inexplicably felt just a measure of pride in doing so, just a measure of wonder.
It is because I know that on the back of the shirt is writ in large letters: ‘Grace Happens’.
Andy+
|
The Archbishop Speaks With Anglican Calm — To A
Not So Tranquil Church
June/28/2006 05:40 PM | Permalink
Beloved:
The Archbishop of Canterbury's Letter to the Primates of June 27 entitled "The Challenge and Hope of Being an Anglican Today: A Reflection for the Bishops, Clergy and Faithful of the Anglican Communion" is defining reality even as we say our prayers. I hope we will read it will the attention to nuance and detail. It is a great affirmation of the new possibility that the Episcopal Church may still reclaim its Anglican identity return to the Anglican fold. Please find here a summary of +Rowan's response from our friends at the Anglican Communion Institute, along with some thoughts in conclusion as to the implications for action at a parish and diocesan level.
In other late breaking news today the Diocese of Newark announced its candidates for bishop in an election to be held September 26th. Just as I predicted, the lead name on the list is an openly gay priest in a same gendered relationship, the Rev. Canon Michael Barlow. Apparently, the conclusion that he would be taken off the list because of Resolution B-033 did not last long. The chances are very good that he will be elected. This is a good day for the serious blogger. Read the press release and two reactions from the poles here.
While I knew it was coming, I would not have guessed that it would arrive with such perfect symmetry. The Diocese of Pittsburgh announced its appeal today to the Archbishop of Canterbury for "Alternative Primatial Oversight" and its hope that a new 10th Province of the Episcopal Church would be formed. The questions of course is: 'By whom?' and 'by what precedent?' For that we will just have to wait and see. Actually, reading the discussion thread on Titusonenine is worth doing on this one. All the important questions, risks and opportunities of Bishop Duncan's move are clearly stated. I for one do not think that this the orthodox witness in the overall picture, although it may be necessary for some.
Today is the Feast Day of Ireaneus, Martyr of Lyon, bishop c.180 A.D. and saint of both the Eastern and Western churches; he is the author of the definitive anti-gnostic treatise "Against the Heresies", but as important he named the four canonical gospels as a 'rule of faith' and confirmed that for decades these documents were used by all the churches and were the highest authority in matters of doctrine.
I wonder what he would think of a church that acts in deliberate ways both to obscure the organic unity of the church and to defy the consensus teaching on core doctrines and basic moral questions. I trust his heart is grieved and that there are those who will rise to help us see another path.
As the Archbishop of Canterbury wrote just yesterday: "our unity is something given to us prior to our choices - let alone our votes. ‘You have not chosen me but I have chosen you’, says Jesus to his disciples; and when we gather to celebrate the Eucharist, we are saying that we are all there as invited guests, not because of what we have done. The basic challenge that practically all the churches worldwide, of whatever denomination, so often have to struggle with is, ‘Are we joining together in one act of Holy Communion, one Eucharist, throughout the world, or are we just celebrating our local identities and our personal preferences?’"
I seem to remember that this same archbishop said that baptism forces us to embrace 'solidarities not of our own choosing'. Which one — which church — will it be? We should choose the course that provides for 'greatest possible degree of communion'. Especially today. Today is not a day for 'local option'. Let us continue to hold the Archbishop's letter in our heart and pray it into being.
Faithfully,
Andy+
The Archbishop of Canterbury's Letter to the Primates of June 27 entitled "The Challenge and Hope of Being an Anglican Today: A Reflection for the Bishops, Clergy and Faithful of the Anglican Communion" is defining reality even as we say our prayers. I hope we will read it will the attention to nuance and detail. It is a great affirmation of the new possibility that the Episcopal Church may still reclaim its Anglican identity return to the Anglican fold. Please find here a summary of +Rowan's response from our friends at the Anglican Communion Institute, along with some thoughts in conclusion as to the implications for action at a parish and diocesan level.
In other late breaking news today the Diocese of Newark announced its candidates for bishop in an election to be held September 26th. Just as I predicted, the lead name on the list is an openly gay priest in a same gendered relationship, the Rev. Canon Michael Barlow. Apparently, the conclusion that he would be taken off the list because of Resolution B-033 did not last long. The chances are very good that he will be elected. This is a good day for the serious blogger. Read the press release and two reactions from the poles here.
While I knew it was coming, I would not have guessed that it would arrive with such perfect symmetry. The Diocese of Pittsburgh announced its appeal today to the Archbishop of Canterbury for "Alternative Primatial Oversight" and its hope that a new 10th Province of the Episcopal Church would be formed. The questions of course is: 'By whom?' and 'by what precedent?' For that we will just have to wait and see. Actually, reading the discussion thread on Titusonenine is worth doing on this one. All the important questions, risks and opportunities of Bishop Duncan's move are clearly stated. I for one do not think that this the orthodox witness in the overall picture, although it may be necessary for some.
Today is the Feast Day of Ireaneus, Martyr of Lyon, bishop c.180 A.D. and saint of both the Eastern and Western churches; he is the author of the definitive anti-gnostic treatise "Against the Heresies", but as important he named the four canonical gospels as a 'rule of faith' and confirmed that for decades these documents were used by all the churches and were the highest authority in matters of doctrine.
I wonder what he would think of a church that acts in deliberate ways both to obscure the organic unity of the church and to defy the consensus teaching on core doctrines and basic moral questions. I trust his heart is grieved and that there are those who will rise to help us see another path.
As the Archbishop of Canterbury wrote just yesterday: "our unity is something given to us prior to our choices - let alone our votes. ‘You have not chosen me but I have chosen you’, says Jesus to his disciples; and when we gather to celebrate the Eucharist, we are saying that we are all there as invited guests, not because of what we have done. The basic challenge that practically all the churches worldwide, of whatever denomination, so often have to struggle with is, ‘Are we joining together in one act of Holy Communion, one Eucharist, throughout the world, or are we just celebrating our local identities and our personal preferences?’"
I seem to remember that this same archbishop said that baptism forces us to embrace 'solidarities not of our own choosing'. Which one — which church — will it be? We should choose the course that provides for 'greatest possible degree of communion'. Especially today. Today is not a day for 'local option'. Let us continue to hold the Archbishop's letter in our heart and pray it into being.
Faithfully,
Andy+
Thoughts Upon Waking Up After The Operation [Sermon
Notes]
June/27/2006 10:45 AM | General Convention
| Permalink
Beloved:
The enormity of all we have just passed through these past two weeks hit me physically, mentally, and yes spiritually, as I rose to preach my first sermon back home at Christ Church at 7:30 AM. At the time I didn't know what had hit me. Jet lag? Post-convention stress syndrome (PCSS ... politically correct stress syndrome)? Trauma for sure. I was tired, bone tired, and with little of my usual affect.
Though I knew what my parishioners were thinking, I had no clue what they were feeling. I would have to say as much for myself. I was able to express it later that afternoon after my post-sermon nap (that divine institution). I was feeling the numbness and disorientation one wakes up with in a recovery room, the anesthesia wearing off, wanting to care how the operation went, but not quite able to open one's eyes and focus on what the doctor is saying.
Thankfully, the preacher and the congregation were assisted quite handily with the appointed Gospel lesson of the day. There was General Convention in a nutshell: Jesus sleeping in the back of the great ark of Mother Church, bored, disgusted, amused, saddened, bewildered, furious, grieved, utterly moved that those poor bishops in training couldn't get their act together to survive a little squall much less be able to give a damn about all those other boats all around them, floundering. It was time for some more lessons.
And then there was that other 'untimely-born' apostle's great clarion call to become 'ambassadors of reconciliation'. In the near aftermath of our fatal heart attack as a church I found that I could only handle the sheer weight of Paul's words with kid gloves.
At a Convention you can get away with wearing buttons and waving flags: 'Choose you this day!', 'It's a Girl!', '0.7% MDGs!, 'Reconciliation!'. But who, after 10 days in the Columbus Convention center could honestly look their congregation in the eye and say without blinking: "we now no longer look at each other from a human point of view." Not that I didn't try to say just that; not that I didn't have moments when I knew that God was working overtime on the Convention floor; not that I wasn't aware at times that I was giving a funeral homily.
It's just that after all is said and done, as we survey the wreckage and damage of doing business the way we do, how can we report to the apostle without wanting to cover our ears as he reiterates the obvious: "It's not about you. Be reconciled to God."
Reconciliation is not about compromise; it is not even about consensus on contentious issues. Reconciliation is about the fierce and cleansing movement of the Holy Spirit speaking a truth that must be enacted so that enemies become friends. Look it up in an old dictionary.
It was logical to begin the sermon with the Scriptural 'figure' of the church 'in crisis'. Yet I too found it difficult to say deal with the irrational fear and childish faithlessness of the disciples, much less worry about who was in the other boats. We had been swamped. Jesus must be pulling us up from all sides.
Even so I found myself gently led to download a little history lesson around 'defining crises'. After the council of Jerusalem recorded in the book of Acts, the first defining crisis threatening the visible unity of the church was the Arian heresy precipitating the Council of Nicea in 324. The 150 year pattern of events surrounding the Council of Nicea that led to the creation of a creed in 324, all out ecclesiastical warfare until the revision of the Creed in its present form at the Council of Constantinople in 381 and the reaffirmation of a universally binding canon law in subsequent Councils has obvious application to our situation.
It is what lies behind the idea of an Anglican Covenant. It is the only remedy to the doctrinal drift of the Episcopal Church since the Bishop Pike days and the doctrinal morass our new Presiding Bishop signaled in her inaugural sermon. It is the only remedy that patience can urge given the further divisive actions taken at Convention dealing with liturgy and canon. This historical figure circumscribes accurately the number of issues and the length of time a restatement of a generous and widely accepted orthodoxy in our church will take in the form of an Anglican Covenant.
The second defining crisis had to do with our cultural context, the setting for our noble but highly misleading political rhetoric. That crisis came as a defining the fate of our national project, our peculiar revolution; it came in the form of the spirit of oppression and session leading us into the Civil War. The importance of returning again to the historical and quasi-scriptural 'figure' of the Civil War is more counter-intuitive but equally important at this time.
For some time now, ever I visited Fort Sumpter one sunny Charleston S.C. day two years ago I have been working on a hunch that all of our deepest spiritual, political and cultural instincts established in the first 200 years of our history must be turned on their head in this next century. The fight to 'preserve the Union' and to rid our souls of the oppression of slavery and racism must now be seen in the light of another great reversal.
The new struggle is not for state's rights, sacred ground, manly honor, feminine virtue and a civil society based on outmoded hierarchies, the reassertion of patriarchy; such was cause of the old South. The present battle worth engaging is certainly not the abolition of patriarchy, that great although contested natural symbol for all the self-evident 'natural' lines of authority that divine and human societies depend upon to preserve a balanced respect for the individual and the group. It will be a hard lesson for our elites to relearn, but it is only patriarchy (albeit a kindler and gentler 'soft' one) that creates the space for families and children to flourish among the temptations and demands of the economic and political principalities and powers.
Or put it this way: the new struggle is not one for an overarching supremacy of individual rights and a Chinese menu of 'life styles' bolstered by a monolithic ideology of commercial and corporate interests that is threatening to 'commodify' and de-contextualize every aspect of global culture. Now those were fancy words describing something much more mundane: the forces shaping the erection of 'The Magic Kingdom' throughout a 'McWorld' like so many seeds sown by a highly financed thief in the middle of the night. This is unwitting conspiracy of the rich and arrogant forces waging war against the tribes of 'global south' in the wake of the old North's victory 150 years ago.
The struggle for us, especially as Christians, must be a mutual submission to our brothers and sisters in Christ, especially 'the least of these' in the poorest parts of the globe. The struggle is to discover, establish and maintain a 'global interdependence' of mutual and natural solidarities, both within the church and without, that is not a construct of an ideological 'multiculturalism' of any of the elites currently in power.
Thus we must read the road map of our history in a new contrarian fashion; the North has become the South and the Spirit of the still post-Tribal and Post-colonial South must now speak into and subdue the Spirit of the Autonomous and Post-Imperial North. However great our ideals have been in the past, however wonderful democracy and freedom are as enlightened values, the family of nations needs a new post-Enlightment discourse and vision. The revolution currently taking place is not for liberty, equality or even fraternity. God forbid that it is about the pursuit of happiness. It is about something that still seems abstract to us, but will be the gift of a world culture in this century: interdependence. To paraphrase the famous cry of the Mexican Revolution: Viva la Interdependencia!
One gets a little lightheaded thinking in this way and can lose one's balance; yet it did not escape my attention when last Thursday, in the process of checking out of the hotel to head home, we were all glued to the TV watching a game we are just beginning to comprehend. The World Cup — 'Futbol' in a decidedly un-American key. And wouldn't you know; a team from down South, indeed from the source of the old West African slave trade, decisively drowned the hopes of the best team from up North that money could buy. Ghana 2 USA 1.
Indeed, I felt it important to share this sound bite as we are struggling in our divided hearts over what we are fighting for: "We are fighting for each other." As Christians we are obligated by our Baptismal Covenant to do no other. There was a wonderful serendipitous moment on the convention floor on Saturday, just as we were finally getting 'down to business' and voting on the first 'Windsor Resolutions' when the chaplains took a moment to show us a video clip from movie "Gettysburg", which as many of you will know, is based on Michael Shaara's marvel of an historical novel "The Killer Angels."
In the opening frames of the movie and the opening pages of the novel we meet Colonel Joshua Chamberlain, the enlightened Christian professor and future statesman formerly of Bowdoin, teacher of that old and soon to be outmoded subject 'rhetoric', speaking to a group of would be deserters from his home state of Maine. Somehow, at the dawn of the most important battle of the Civil War, he must for practical and human reasons convince them to fight, though they have been betrayed a hundred times by poor leadership and cynical political calculation. Here is the full text of his 'good words' that somehow convince all but six to join him on Little Round Top:
“Some of us volunteered to fight for Union. Some came in mainly because we were bored at home and this looked like it might be fun. Some came because we were ashamed not to. Many of us came . . . because it was the right thing to do. All of us have seen men die. Most of us never saw a black man back home. We think on that, too. But freedom . . . is not just a word.”
He looked up in to the sky, over silent faces.
“This is a different kind of army. If you look at history you’ll see men fight for pay, or women, or some other kind of loot. They fight for land, or because a king makes them, or just because the like killing. But we’re here for something new. I don’t . . . this hasn’t happened much in the history of the world. We’re an army going out to set other men free.
He bent down, scratched the black dirt into his fingers. He was beginning to warm to it; the words were beginning to flow. No one in front of him was moving.
He said, “This is free ground. All the way from here to the Pacific Ocean. No man has to bow. No man born to royalty. Here we judge you by what you do, not by what your father was. Here you can be something. Here’s a place to build a home. It isn’t the land — there’s always more land. It’s the idea that we all have value, you and me, we’re worth something more than the dirt. I never saw dirt I’d die for, but I’m not asking to come join us and fight for dirt. What we’re all fighting for, in the end, is each other.”
A true story this, that I shared with you on Sunday morning, and now one that must be transposed into the context of our day. Transpose it then into a new key, now that we must in fact learn to gracefully 'bow' to one another across the wide equator of our globe. The old key: The factions of the politically inchoate and multi-ethnic North fighting for each other. The misplaced ideals of fading South fighting for each other. And whether they know it or not, whether they believe it or not, the North fighting for the South and the South fighting for the North, fighting for each other's souls, fighting for each other. The new key: a longed for, hoped for unity in diversity, a South not just catching up with the North, a North not just dictating the terms of life for the South, but peoples of every imaginable language and ethnicity fighting for 'each other'. If we truly take these words to heart there is no 'us' or 'them' inhabiting them at all.
In the middle of this historical 'figuralizing' I felt it important to remind my flock that WE ARE NOT A DENOMINATION. I had it capitalized in my notes, as if this was some obvious deduction from the appointed readings. I suppose it was my intuitive nod to the hope that we as a church are in the big boat of Christ's concern, although we often act like we are those other smaller boats along for the ride. Indeed, if there is anything the Windsor Report has taught us is that Episcopalians do not begin to understand the basics of their theology of the church — our 'ecclesiology' as the theologians like to call it. One reason for this that is obvious to an observer of a General Convention is that our ecclesiology is disguised and overwhelmed by the strident deficiencies of our practical polity.
Thus, I was compelled to remind these most dear people of their inheritance, especially as must have felt like watching the children have yet another dog and cat fight over the estate. Even though we tear at the seams and make an ugly patch of it and take way too long to reweave the fabric of our common life in a new Covenant, we must remember always that we are as Anglicans, with a special, though humble gift to give to Christ's Body. We are not a denomination, but a global communion of churches bound by common confession of the Nicene faith, common worship in upholding the Supremacy of the Word in the duly administered Sacraments of the New Covenant. And all this made possible by real and practical and evolving bonds of affection.
If our leaders are waking up to it, we must give the rest of the world time to see it as well — not to mention the folks in the pew! The Anglican Communion is not strictly speaking a product of the Reformation, but of a hidden operation of the Holy Spirit sowing sister churches throughout the globe, first as a result of Empire, but now increasingly as a result of a vision and lived life of communion. We are a conciliar church making decisions that affect us all in common counsel. We are destined to live life in communion or go our separate and autonomous ways. I said it as powerfully as I could: we must resist, even repent, of the twin spirits of separation and divorce, of both walking apart and schism. Beginning now in our diocese. Beginning tomorrow in our relationship with our bishop.
As I looked out upon the faces of my wonderful congregation, I did not presume that I would be perfectly understood, or even that everyone was able to listen to this stream of 'figures of speech'. I felt barely articulate myself. I barely knew how I felt. And so it will take time to really grasp that the 'old has passed away and the new has come'. It will take time for some to realize that the Episcopal Church voted itself out of existence on the last day of its General Convention. It will take time for others to admit that the Episcopal Church voted itself to be reconstituted at another appointed time of God's own choosing. It will take time to await, not a provisional resuscitation, but a true resurrection into the Body and Bride of Christ.
Many miraculous things will have to happen. A new Windsor Process will have to be put in place. Everyone knows that this is based on a wing and a prayer — a wing of a measure of newfound trust in a single vote — a prayer that was uttered by a clear, muddled, diverse, dispersed majority on the final day in both Houses of our Convention. Believe me; it was all of these things.
That trust will not come easily.
Our elders of that 'greatest generation' will have to put aside the sheer, piercing, devastating pain and grief of watching all that they worked for, all that they were loyal to over decades, die this tortured death. Ever since the Bishop Pyke affair they have watched and waited for that 'boomer generation' to come home after it had chased after every fashion and false god, only to realize that they would not.
Our youth will have to learn again the hard lesson of patience after the cultivation of truth and wisdom. They must not be taught to wear buttons and wave flags; they must be taught the deep truths of our history and the deeper truths of Holy Scripture. They will have to learn that the price of being a family of families, one nation made up of many tribes, able to deliver on the promise of becoming the life giving conduit of the next generation will require a sacrifice and relinquishment that will never show up in their idealist dreams.
The left will have to lay down its banners and flags setting forth special rights and privileges under the guise of a rhetoric of inclusion; liberals are going to have to submit to the greater profundities of the divine figures of judgment and mercy set forth in the Law and in the Prophets and enacted by Son of the everlasting Father himself. The LGBT community and their allies and supporters (actual resolution language!) are just going to have to wait until the wider church states clearly that marriage and its natural concerns in the ordering of family life around the birthing, adoption and nurturing of children, is a core doctrine and fleshly sacrament of the church.
The right will have to lay down its shields and maces of idealist views of Faith and Order; the orthodox are going to have to admit that while Scripture is our primary authority, it is not our only one — and that other authorities are crucial in our goal to come to a common mind about Scripture as a Church catholic (universal). Chief among these must be a restatement of our reverence for the ecumenical councils of the church. The right must labor to restate the authority of the conciliar process that we can make visible in our time, lived with integrity in this age of the church, articulating our communion in a confession of the Nicene faith, the holiness of common worship and workableness of a gracious canon law.
And everyone will have to discover a more finely tuned, more deftly sharpened, theological bone in their body. Most likely the insertion of that bone will be a messy operation, transplanted by those all too blunt Instruments of Unity. But when all is said and done, they are the only instruments we have if the Episcopal Church is going to become a 'constituent member of the Anglican Communion' and be a conduit of this special gift to Christ's Body of this way of witnessing to the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the world.
Having said all of this, as well as I can now say it, I would have to confess that I am still clueless as to how Jesus is going to still the storm and stop our bickering. It is too daunting to even grapple with the mission that awaits us on the other oh-so-pagan side in the persona of the chained tomb walker possessed by 'Legion'. Legion is many indeed — a culture which is ours, that source of all the arrogance, anger, avarice, envy, gluttony, sloth, lust, and general evil foolishness that infests us like so much spam in our inboxes and is now marketed to be just a click away on the cursed internet. Legion is a church that will not repent of a spirit of selfish independence, self serving separation and self defeating divorce.
Again I say, join me in resisting these spirits, in fasting and praying to cast out 'Legion' haunting us in the tombs of our cultural and political dead ends. For truly I tell you, they only will be thrown into the sea, by a faithful covenanted together through fasting and prayer.
Please remember what else I told you. In these last days we have been given a renewed vocation as a church to be a body completely devoted to Intercessory Prayer. The type of prayer that we must learn cannot be communicated by this label alone. The Lord has shown me that we must expect and steward an anointing that will awaken in our midst the spirit of the prophets. It is the prophets alone, fit to the foundation of the apostles that precede them, that can give sure guidance to the office and spirit of the apostles and their successors. We must exercise this challenging and often confrontational ministry precisely for the love of our dear bishops around the world. And I told you I had our own bishop in training, +Rob, first in mind.
Beloved: thank you for trying to listen and trying to hear all these things. Thank you for your trust in the Good Shepherd. Thank you for your continued prayers your bishop and the bishops of this fledgling communion. Thank you for your prayers for all the leaders of this diocese, lay and clergy. Thank you for whatever trust that you can demonstrate as we go forward together. Trust that He will speak and guide us, calm the storm, set our feet on the other side, not only that 'sheep may safely grace', but that we can learn to go boldly forth in our common mission.
There was a verse that I handed out to the Bishop and to the Deputation as they were voting on the fate of Episcopal Church on the last day of Convention: "Whether you go to the left or to the right, you will hear in your ear a voice behind you saying — 'This is the way; walk in it'."
Words of the prophet Isaiah himself for us [Isaiah 30:21]. No truer words can be spoken to those who would be faithful to the Spirit of Truth in our time and the outworking of the Holy Spirit in the days ahead. There is so much more here than meets the eye. Think on these things.
Here endeth the notes to the sermon. I know I didn't exactly say all this in plain English. But it is what I so desperately want to say to you right now. It is what I believe that we are called to say to each other in the short term, until our way forward becomes more clear.
Only one more thing to say, as an act of faith, as it gives me such joy and pleasure to say it every Sunday when I celebrate: Good Morning Christ Church! As you have taught me, His mercies are new every morning.
His kingdom come .... His will be done .... On earth .... As in heaven ....
Andy+
P. S. — Upon finishing these reflections I received this press release from the Archbishop of Canterbury. In it he diplomatically reaffirms his commitment to the Windsor Report and signals a future joint consultation that we have referred to as 'the windsor process' leading to an Anglican Covenant. He references a talk that may give us more clues. Which is to say that all we are meant to do today is rekindle our patience, and greet this new period of more honest restraint with all the energy and joy we can muster.
The enormity of all we have just passed through these past two weeks hit me physically, mentally, and yes spiritually, as I rose to preach my first sermon back home at Christ Church at 7:30 AM. At the time I didn't know what had hit me. Jet lag? Post-convention stress syndrome (PCSS ... politically correct stress syndrome)? Trauma for sure. I was tired, bone tired, and with little of my usual affect.
Though I knew what my parishioners were thinking, I had no clue what they were feeling. I would have to say as much for myself. I was able to express it later that afternoon after my post-sermon nap (that divine institution). I was feeling the numbness and disorientation one wakes up with in a recovery room, the anesthesia wearing off, wanting to care how the operation went, but not quite able to open one's eyes and focus on what the doctor is saying.
Thankfully, the preacher and the congregation were assisted quite handily with the appointed Gospel lesson of the day. There was General Convention in a nutshell: Jesus sleeping in the back of the great ark of Mother Church, bored, disgusted, amused, saddened, bewildered, furious, grieved, utterly moved that those poor bishops in training couldn't get their act together to survive a little squall much less be able to give a damn about all those other boats all around them, floundering. It was time for some more lessons.
And then there was that other 'untimely-born' apostle's great clarion call to become 'ambassadors of reconciliation'. In the near aftermath of our fatal heart attack as a church I found that I could only handle the sheer weight of Paul's words with kid gloves.
At a Convention you can get away with wearing buttons and waving flags: 'Choose you this day!', 'It's a Girl!', '0.7% MDGs!, 'Reconciliation!'. But who, after 10 days in the Columbus Convention center could honestly look their congregation in the eye and say without blinking: "we now no longer look at each other from a human point of view." Not that I didn't try to say just that; not that I didn't have moments when I knew that God was working overtime on the Convention floor; not that I wasn't aware at times that I was giving a funeral homily.
It's just that after all is said and done, as we survey the wreckage and damage of doing business the way we do, how can we report to the apostle without wanting to cover our ears as he reiterates the obvious: "It's not about you. Be reconciled to God."
Reconciliation is not about compromise; it is not even about consensus on contentious issues. Reconciliation is about the fierce and cleansing movement of the Holy Spirit speaking a truth that must be enacted so that enemies become friends. Look it up in an old dictionary.
It was logical to begin the sermon with the Scriptural 'figure' of the church 'in crisis'. Yet I too found it difficult to say deal with the irrational fear and childish faithlessness of the disciples, much less worry about who was in the other boats. We had been swamped. Jesus must be pulling us up from all sides.
Even so I found myself gently led to download a little history lesson around 'defining crises'. After the council of Jerusalem recorded in the book of Acts, the first defining crisis threatening the visible unity of the church was the Arian heresy precipitating the Council of Nicea in 324. The 150 year pattern of events surrounding the Council of Nicea that led to the creation of a creed in 324, all out ecclesiastical warfare until the revision of the Creed in its present form at the Council of Constantinople in 381 and the reaffirmation of a universally binding canon law in subsequent Councils has obvious application to our situation.
It is what lies behind the idea of an Anglican Covenant. It is the only remedy to the doctrinal drift of the Episcopal Church since the Bishop Pike days and the doctrinal morass our new Presiding Bishop signaled in her inaugural sermon. It is the only remedy that patience can urge given the further divisive actions taken at Convention dealing with liturgy and canon. This historical figure circumscribes accurately the number of issues and the length of time a restatement of a generous and widely accepted orthodoxy in our church will take in the form of an Anglican Covenant.
The second defining crisis had to do with our cultural context, the setting for our noble but highly misleading political rhetoric. That crisis came as a defining the fate of our national project, our peculiar revolution; it came in the form of the spirit of oppression and session leading us into the Civil War. The importance of returning again to the historical and quasi-scriptural 'figure' of the Civil War is more counter-intuitive but equally important at this time.
For some time now, ever I visited Fort Sumpter one sunny Charleston S.C. day two years ago I have been working on a hunch that all of our deepest spiritual, political and cultural instincts established in the first 200 years of our history must be turned on their head in this next century. The fight to 'preserve the Union' and to rid our souls of the oppression of slavery and racism must now be seen in the light of another great reversal.
The new struggle is not for state's rights, sacred ground, manly honor, feminine virtue and a civil society based on outmoded hierarchies, the reassertion of patriarchy; such was cause of the old South. The present battle worth engaging is certainly not the abolition of patriarchy, that great although contested natural symbol for all the self-evident 'natural' lines of authority that divine and human societies depend upon to preserve a balanced respect for the individual and the group. It will be a hard lesson for our elites to relearn, but it is only patriarchy (albeit a kindler and gentler 'soft' one) that creates the space for families and children to flourish among the temptations and demands of the economic and political principalities and powers.
Or put it this way: the new struggle is not one for an overarching supremacy of individual rights and a Chinese menu of 'life styles' bolstered by a monolithic ideology of commercial and corporate interests that is threatening to 'commodify' and de-contextualize every aspect of global culture. Now those were fancy words describing something much more mundane: the forces shaping the erection of 'The Magic Kingdom' throughout a 'McWorld' like so many seeds sown by a highly financed thief in the middle of the night. This is unwitting conspiracy of the rich and arrogant forces waging war against the tribes of 'global south' in the wake of the old North's victory 150 years ago.
The struggle for us, especially as Christians, must be a mutual submission to our brothers and sisters in Christ, especially 'the least of these' in the poorest parts of the globe. The struggle is to discover, establish and maintain a 'global interdependence' of mutual and natural solidarities, both within the church and without, that is not a construct of an ideological 'multiculturalism' of any of the elites currently in power.
Thus we must read the road map of our history in a new contrarian fashion; the North has become the South and the Spirit of the still post-Tribal and Post-colonial South must now speak into and subdue the Spirit of the Autonomous and Post-Imperial North. However great our ideals have been in the past, however wonderful democracy and freedom are as enlightened values, the family of nations needs a new post-Enlightment discourse and vision. The revolution currently taking place is not for liberty, equality or even fraternity. God forbid that it is about the pursuit of happiness. It is about something that still seems abstract to us, but will be the gift of a world culture in this century: interdependence. To paraphrase the famous cry of the Mexican Revolution: Viva la Interdependencia!
One gets a little lightheaded thinking in this way and can lose one's balance; yet it did not escape my attention when last Thursday, in the process of checking out of the hotel to head home, we were all glued to the TV watching a game we are just beginning to comprehend. The World Cup — 'Futbol' in a decidedly un-American key. And wouldn't you know; a team from down South, indeed from the source of the old West African slave trade, decisively drowned the hopes of the best team from up North that money could buy. Ghana 2 USA 1.
Indeed, I felt it important to share this sound bite as we are struggling in our divided hearts over what we are fighting for: "We are fighting for each other." As Christians we are obligated by our Baptismal Covenant to do no other. There was a wonderful serendipitous moment on the convention floor on Saturday, just as we were finally getting 'down to business' and voting on the first 'Windsor Resolutions' when the chaplains took a moment to show us a video clip from movie "Gettysburg", which as many of you will know, is based on Michael Shaara's marvel of an historical novel "The Killer Angels."
In the opening frames of the movie and the opening pages of the novel we meet Colonel Joshua Chamberlain, the enlightened Christian professor and future statesman formerly of Bowdoin, teacher of that old and soon to be outmoded subject 'rhetoric', speaking to a group of would be deserters from his home state of Maine. Somehow, at the dawn of the most important battle of the Civil War, he must for practical and human reasons convince them to fight, though they have been betrayed a hundred times by poor leadership and cynical political calculation. Here is the full text of his 'good words' that somehow convince all but six to join him on Little Round Top:
“Some of us volunteered to fight for Union. Some came in mainly because we were bored at home and this looked like it might be fun. Some came because we were ashamed not to. Many of us came . . . because it was the right thing to do. All of us have seen men die. Most of us never saw a black man back home. We think on that, too. But freedom . . . is not just a word.”
He looked up in to the sky, over silent faces.
“This is a different kind of army. If you look at history you’ll see men fight for pay, or women, or some other kind of loot. They fight for land, or because a king makes them, or just because the like killing. But we’re here for something new. I don’t . . . this hasn’t happened much in the history of the world. We’re an army going out to set other men free.
He bent down, scratched the black dirt into his fingers. He was beginning to warm to it; the words were beginning to flow. No one in front of him was moving.
He said, “This is free ground. All the way from here to the Pacific Ocean. No man has to bow. No man born to royalty. Here we judge you by what you do, not by what your father was. Here you can be something. Here’s a place to build a home. It isn’t the land — there’s always more land. It’s the idea that we all have value, you and me, we’re worth something more than the dirt. I never saw dirt I’d die for, but I’m not asking to come join us and fight for dirt. What we’re all fighting for, in the end, is each other.”
A true story this, that I shared with you on Sunday morning, and now one that must be transposed into the context of our day. Transpose it then into a new key, now that we must in fact learn to gracefully 'bow' to one another across the wide equator of our globe. The old key: The factions of the politically inchoate and multi-ethnic North fighting for each other. The misplaced ideals of fading South fighting for each other. And whether they know it or not, whether they believe it or not, the North fighting for the South and the South fighting for the North, fighting for each other's souls, fighting for each other. The new key: a longed for, hoped for unity in diversity, a South not just catching up with the North, a North not just dictating the terms of life for the South, but peoples of every imaginable language and ethnicity fighting for 'each other'. If we truly take these words to heart there is no 'us' or 'them' inhabiting them at all.
In the middle of this historical 'figuralizing' I felt it important to remind my flock that WE ARE NOT A DENOMINATION. I had it capitalized in my notes, as if this was some obvious deduction from the appointed readings. I suppose it was my intuitive nod to the hope that we as a church are in the big boat of Christ's concern, although we often act like we are those other smaller boats along for the ride. Indeed, if there is anything the Windsor Report has taught us is that Episcopalians do not begin to understand the basics of their theology of the church — our 'ecclesiology' as the theologians like to call it. One reason for this that is obvious to an observer of a General Convention is that our ecclesiology is disguised and overwhelmed by the strident deficiencies of our practical polity.
Thus, I was compelled to remind these most dear people of their inheritance, especially as must have felt like watching the children have yet another dog and cat fight over the estate. Even though we tear at the seams and make an ugly patch of it and take way too long to reweave the fabric of our common life in a new Covenant, we must remember always that we are as Anglicans, with a special, though humble gift to give to Christ's Body. We are not a denomination, but a global communion of churches bound by common confession of the Nicene faith, common worship in upholding the Supremacy of the Word in the duly administered Sacraments of the New Covenant. And all this made possible by real and practical and evolving bonds of affection.
If our leaders are waking up to it, we must give the rest of the world time to see it as well — not to mention the folks in the pew! The Anglican Communion is not strictly speaking a product of the Reformation, but of a hidden operation of the Holy Spirit sowing sister churches throughout the globe, first as a result of Empire, but now increasingly as a result of a vision and lived life of communion. We are a conciliar church making decisions that affect us all in common counsel. We are destined to live life in communion or go our separate and autonomous ways. I said it as powerfully as I could: we must resist, even repent, of the twin spirits of separation and divorce, of both walking apart and schism. Beginning now in our diocese. Beginning tomorrow in our relationship with our bishop.
As I looked out upon the faces of my wonderful congregation, I did not presume that I would be perfectly understood, or even that everyone was able to listen to this stream of 'figures of speech'. I felt barely articulate myself. I barely knew how I felt. And so it will take time to really grasp that the 'old has passed away and the new has come'. It will take time for some to realize that the Episcopal Church voted itself out of existence on the last day of its General Convention. It will take time for others to admit that the Episcopal Church voted itself to be reconstituted at another appointed time of God's own choosing. It will take time to await, not a provisional resuscitation, but a true resurrection into the Body and Bride of Christ.
Many miraculous things will have to happen. A new Windsor Process will have to be put in place. Everyone knows that this is based on a wing and a prayer — a wing of a measure of newfound trust in a single vote — a prayer that was uttered by a clear, muddled, diverse, dispersed majority on the final day in both Houses of our Convention. Believe me; it was all of these things.
That trust will not come easily.
Our elders of that 'greatest generation' will have to put aside the sheer, piercing, devastating pain and grief of watching all that they worked for, all that they were loyal to over decades, die this tortured death. Ever since the Bishop Pyke affair they have watched and waited for that 'boomer generation' to come home after it had chased after every fashion and false god, only to realize that they would not.
Our youth will have to learn again the hard lesson of patience after the cultivation of truth and wisdom. They must not be taught to wear buttons and wave flags; they must be taught the deep truths of our history and the deeper truths of Holy Scripture. They will have to learn that the price of being a family of families, one nation made up of many tribes, able to deliver on the promise of becoming the life giving conduit of the next generation will require a sacrifice and relinquishment that will never show up in their idealist dreams.
The left will have to lay down its banners and flags setting forth special rights and privileges under the guise of a rhetoric of inclusion; liberals are going to have to submit to the greater profundities of the divine figures of judgment and mercy set forth in the Law and in the Prophets and enacted by Son of the everlasting Father himself. The LGBT community and their allies and supporters (actual resolution language!) are just going to have to wait until the wider church states clearly that marriage and its natural concerns in the ordering of family life around the birthing, adoption and nurturing of children, is a core doctrine and fleshly sacrament of the church.
The right will have to lay down its shields and maces of idealist views of Faith and Order; the orthodox are going to have to admit that while Scripture is our primary authority, it is not our only one — and that other authorities are crucial in our goal to come to a common mind about Scripture as a Church catholic (universal). Chief among these must be a restatement of our reverence for the ecumenical councils of the church. The right must labor to restate the authority of the conciliar process that we can make visible in our time, lived with integrity in this age of the church, articulating our communion in a confession of the Nicene faith, the holiness of common worship and workableness of a gracious canon law.
And everyone will have to discover a more finely tuned, more deftly sharpened, theological bone in their body. Most likely the insertion of that bone will be a messy operation, transplanted by those all too blunt Instruments of Unity. But when all is said and done, they are the only instruments we have if the Episcopal Church is going to become a 'constituent member of the Anglican Communion' and be a conduit of this special gift to Christ's Body of this way of witnessing to the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the world.
Having said all of this, as well as I can now say it, I would have to confess that I am still clueless as to how Jesus is going to still the storm and stop our bickering. It is too daunting to even grapple with the mission that awaits us on the other oh-so-pagan side in the persona of the chained tomb walker possessed by 'Legion'. Legion is many indeed — a culture which is ours, that source of all the arrogance, anger, avarice, envy, gluttony, sloth, lust, and general evil foolishness that infests us like so much spam in our inboxes and is now marketed to be just a click away on the cursed internet. Legion is a church that will not repent of a spirit of selfish independence, self serving separation and self defeating divorce.
Again I say, join me in resisting these spirits, in fasting and praying to cast out 'Legion' haunting us in the tombs of our cultural and political dead ends. For truly I tell you, they only will be thrown into the sea, by a faithful covenanted together through fasting and prayer.
Please remember what else I told you. In these last days we have been given a renewed vocation as a church to be a body completely devoted to Intercessory Prayer. The type of prayer that we must learn cannot be communicated by this label alone. The Lord has shown me that we must expect and steward an anointing that will awaken in our midst the spirit of the prophets. It is the prophets alone, fit to the foundation of the apostles that precede them, that can give sure guidance to the office and spirit of the apostles and their successors. We must exercise this challenging and often confrontational ministry precisely for the love of our dear bishops around the world. And I told you I had our own bishop in training, +Rob, first in mind.
Beloved: thank you for trying to listen and trying to hear all these things. Thank you for your trust in the Good Shepherd. Thank you for your continued prayers your bishop and the bishops of this fledgling communion. Thank you for your prayers for all the leaders of this diocese, lay and clergy. Thank you for whatever trust that you can demonstrate as we go forward together. Trust that He will speak and guide us, calm the storm, set our feet on the other side, not only that 'sheep may safely grace', but that we can learn to go boldly forth in our common mission.
There was a verse that I handed out to the Bishop and to the Deputation as they were voting on the fate of Episcopal Church on the last day of Convention: "Whether you go to the left or to the right, you will hear in your ear a voice behind you saying — 'This is the way; walk in it'."
Words of the prophet Isaiah himself for us [Isaiah 30:21]. No truer words can be spoken to those who would be faithful to the Spirit of Truth in our time and the outworking of the Holy Spirit in the days ahead. There is so much more here than meets the eye. Think on these things.
Here endeth the notes to the sermon. I know I didn't exactly say all this in plain English. But it is what I so desperately want to say to you right now. It is what I believe that we are called to say to each other in the short term, until our way forward becomes more clear.
Only one more thing to say, as an act of faith, as it gives me such joy and pleasure to say it every Sunday when I celebrate: Good Morning Christ Church! As you have taught me, His mercies are new every morning.
His kingdom come .... His will be done .... On earth .... As in heaven ....
Andy+
P. S. — Upon finishing these reflections I received this press release from the Archbishop of Canterbury. In it he diplomatically reaffirms his commitment to the Windsor Report and signals a future joint consultation that we have referred to as 'the windsor process' leading to an Anglican Covenant. He references a talk that may give us more clues. Which is to say that all we are meant to do today is rekindle our patience, and greet this new period of more honest restraint with all the energy and joy we can muster.
Continued Reflections on GC 2006
June/24/2006 07:16 AM | General Convention
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Beloved:
In the coming weeks and days I will continue the effort to keep you informed on my blog about the impact of General Convention on our life at Christ Church, and especially about what I am thinking.
In the meantime, if you have already read my post from June 22nd "Conclusions Anyone?", please reread it. I have added significant interpretations along with several new stories. The Lord keeps moving me along a path of understanding, and until I have preached Sunday's sermon (!), there may be a few finishing touches put on that record of the final day of Convention.
It is important for us to realize, that however much the Convention did or did not respond to the Anglican Communion through the Windsor Report, the Communion will most surely respond to us. See especially the two statements, one from the Archbishop of Canterbury and one from CAPA African Bishops, on the home page of the Anglican Communion website. That the CAPA statement is on the website is a significant 'diplomatic' statement in and of itself. I am certain that the Communion's response will be not only analytical but pastoral. Which means that there may be actions that we will be led to take as a parish, thoughtfully, graciously and charitably, not out of frustration, weariness or anger, in response to what the Communion will now say.
In this context, I pass on to you Bishop O'Neill's pastoral letter to the Diocese. I ask you to read it with charity, but also critically within the wider context of the Communion's forthcoming response. We will all know well enough in the days and months ahead if our Bishop's assessment is in the main reasonably accurate or significantly wanting.
Our bishop strove valiantly to keep this church together during Convention. For that I am deeply grateful to him. I am certain that he has carefully chosen his words in an effort to do so as he returns home from the field of battle. I ask your continued prayers for him, especially as he seems to grow in stature as a leader in the House of Bishops. There undoubtedly will be difficult decisions in the days ahead.
This comes with my grateful appreciation for all your prayers and your love for our church.
Andy+
In the coming weeks and days I will continue the effort to keep you informed on my blog about the impact of General Convention on our life at Christ Church, and especially about what I am thinking.
In the meantime, if you have already read my post from June 22nd "Conclusions Anyone?", please reread it. I have added significant interpretations along with several new stories. The Lord keeps moving me along a path of understanding, and until I have preached Sunday's sermon (!), there may be a few finishing touches put on that record of the final day of Convention.
It is important for us to realize, that however much the Convention did or did not respond to the Anglican Communion through the Windsor Report, the Communion will most surely respond to us. See especially the two statements, one from the Archbishop of Canterbury and one from CAPA African Bishops, on the home page of the Anglican Communion website. That the CAPA statement is on the website is a significant 'diplomatic' statement in and of itself. I am certain that the Communion's response will be not only analytical but pastoral. Which means that there may be actions that we will be led to take as a parish, thoughtfully, graciously and charitably, not out of frustration, weariness or anger, in response to what the Communion will now say.
In this context, I pass on to you Bishop O'Neill's pastoral letter to the Diocese. I ask you to read it with charity, but also critically within the wider context of the Communion's forthcoming response. We will all know well enough in the days and months ahead if our Bishop's assessment is in the main reasonably accurate or significantly wanting.
Our bishop strove valiantly to keep this church together during Convention. For that I am deeply grateful to him. I am certain that he has carefully chosen his words in an effort to do so as he returns home from the field of battle. I ask your continued prayers for him, especially as he seems to grow in stature as a leader in the House of Bishops. There undoubtedly will be difficult decisions in the days ahead.
This comes with my grateful appreciation for all your prayers and your love for our church.
Andy+
GC 2006: Conclusions Anyone?
June/22/2006 03:17 PM | General Convention
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Beloved,
I was hoping to post an update last night, but with all the work still to be done in our Deputation to 'make it a wrap' I offer these reflections as a first pass at summarizing "the results" of Convention.
My day began as I woke up to pray at 2:30 AM and concluded by falling into bed at 2:00 AM. As the gavel went down on the House of Deputies at 6:00 PM, the Colorado Deputation left the field of engagement and headed back to headquarters at the Columbus Renaissance Hotel. We threw on some more comfortable clothes, gathered in the lobby with +Rob and Ginger, members of the ECW delegation, convention volunteers from Colorado. and grabbed taxis to the famous "Germantown" area of Columbus, for a lovely 'memorial' dinner at the restaurant 'Barcelona'. It was a blessing just to be together and appreciate one another's good faith, hard work and new found friendship.
If Tuesday was the day the Episcopal Church was stricken with a heart attack, Wednesday the paddles of the apostolic office were applied and we witnessed a surprising and unexpected resuscitation. Outgoing Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold finally showed decisive leadership by calling together the two Houses of Deputies and Bishop in a joint session. +Frank's statement to that joint House were some of the clearest and most urgent words I have ever heard him speak. They are worth quoting in full because they also summarize eloquently the turn in events that brought the Convention to this precise turn — including Tuesday's late night passing of A166 supporting the idea of the Episcopal Church joining in the process for developing an Anglican Covenant. Here is what "our chief pastor" had to say to us:
"When I became your Presiding Bishop eight and a half years ago, I called the church to the costly discipline of conversation. At that time I pointed out that the word conversation and the word conversion come from the same Latin root. I said that to enter into conversation deeply, and with an undefended heart, opened the way to conversion. By conversion I did not mean one point of view capitulating to another – but rather a new way of seeing one another and recognizing Christ in one another. The conversion of which I spoke had less to do with a change of mind and more to do with a change of heart.
"As part of our response to the Windsor Report, we have passed Resolution A159 which reaffirms "the abiding commitment of the Episcopal Church to the fellowship of churches that constitute the Anglican Communion and to seek to live into the highest degree of communion possible." We have also passed Resolution A166 supporting the process of developing an Anglican Covenant for the purpose of strengthening our Communion. We have thus indicated our desire for continuing conversation.
"However, unless there is a clear perception on the part of our Anglican brothers and sisters that they have been taken seriously in their concerns it will be impossible to have any genuine conversation. Therefore there will be no conversion and the bonds of affection which undergird communion will be further strained. We will be less able to recognize Christ in one another and the mission we are called to share together for the sake of the world will be further diminished and undermined.
"For our voices to be heard there needs to be a clear sense that we are not ignoring the sensibilities of those who are genuinely unable to understand what we have done. Yes, there is anger, but to a greater degree, there is confusion.
"And conversation works. I have already experienced some of its potential fruits in the course of primates' meetings, as difficult as they sometimes have been. There have been times when, with great difficulty, I have had to receive before I was able to give. Such moments have not been easy but they have been necessary.
"Humility is not an easy virtue but it is very much required in this season. Humility requires at times a stance of restraint in order that something larger can happen. There are times when what may appear to be a step backward may be called for in order to go forward.
"Let me say here: we need to be mindful of the dynamics that have brought us to where we are. Some among us feel that expressions of restraint with regard to the office of bishop demean the dignity of those among us who are gay and lesbian. Others among us may be opposed to expressions of restraint, which would make it more difficult for them to justify their apparent need to establish a separate ecclesial body. Nothing would better serve such purposes than to be able to say that we, because of our action or inaction, have chosen to walk apart from the rest of the Communion. In a strange way, those with very different views are able to vote on the same side of the question.
"However, resolutions passed thus far indicate a desire on the part of the majority to find a way forward that may require relinquishments on all sides. The majority of us, whom I describe as the diverse center – made up of divergent opinions but unified by a common sense of being church together for the sake of mission, do not want to take a step that precludes further steps and genuine conversation.
"I have said that conversation works and that I have seen the fruits of difficult conversations as hearts and minds have been opened. I want our 26th Presiding Bishop and our members of the Anglican Consultative Council to have an opportunity to be at the table, to engage in those conversations.
"This is the final day of General Convention. What I believe we actually yearn for has not been adequately reflected through the workings of our legislative processes. Our conversations in both Houses reveal a much greater complexity. We must now act with generosity and imagination so that our actions are a clearer reflection of the willingness of the majority of us to relinquish something in order to serve a larger purpose.
"As your Presiding Bishop and chief pastor, I now ask both houses to consider the following resolution. I do so knowing that consideration in the House of Deputies may require special action.
Resolution B003, "On the Election of Bishops"
Resolved, [the House of Deputies concurring,] that the 75th General Convention receive and embrace the Windsor Report's invitation to engage in a process of healing and reconciliation; and be it further
Resolved, that this Convention therefore call upon Standing Committees and bishops with jurisdiction to exercise restraint by not consenting to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion.
"I will close this session with a prayer and ask the bishops to return promptly to their House to reconvene in order to consider this resolution. [Presiding Bishop Griswold led the session in prayer.] The joint session is now ended."
It is hard to describe adequately the sheer gravity and electricity of these words, given the usual muddled conceptuality of a Frank Griswold paragraph. For those who followed the intricacy of the intensely argued resolutions of the previous week, this resolution shows diplomatic genius. In fact, the speculation of almost everyone is that a specific request from +Rowan Williams himself is behind the precise wording. Five bishops are listed as signatories to this resolution, including our very own Rob O'Neill. All five of the bishops of the Special Committee are to be heartily commended and thanked for their faithful and heroic labor that won for them the moral and spiritual authority to make this resolution to the divided "houses" of the Episcopal Church.
It is beyond doubt that +Frank and others called +Rowan Williams and asked 'what do you need.' And whether the Anglican Communion Office offered precise wording or not, they surely said something like, 'if you can't deliver two moratoria, we'll take the essential one — along with your commitment to walk with us'. In its first resolve, the resolution signifies 'we want to be in'; and in the second resolve it makes it real by alluding to one single but immutable fact, stated without naming names: 'for now brothers and sisters no more bishops living in same gendered unions.'
Gone are the raft of other concerns of the Special Commission and Committee, the canonical anxieties over nominations and elections, the apologies required of various parties, and a moratorium on public rites blessing same gender unions. And so it appears that the result of the great battle of this convention is a classic compromise. If one part of the church got a certain kind of bishop in 2003, another far larger part of the church got that bishop taken off the table in 2006.
The resolution played quite differently in the House of Bishops as opposed to the House of Deputies. In a remarkable debate among themselves, the bishops faced for the first time, the reality of the clock. Just as they had waited until that moment to talk turkey about what the rest of the Communion wanted, they were tempted to fiddle as the bridge from 815 Fifth Avenue to Canterbury burned. A completely inadequate substitute was proposed, debated and then withdrawn after a short recess. As +Frank called the House back together after recess, his impatient anger showed as he announced to the House: "I hope you realize that you are voting on whether or not the Bishops of the Episcopal Church will be invited to Lambeth". It was shocking but true. In the next breath +Frank allowed as this was only his "opinion", but the reality of cancelled plane reservations in 2008 was never more real to that body.
At a key moment in the debate among the bishops on the substitute resolution, the Presiding Bishop elect, +Katherine Jefferts Schori stood up to speak. What would she say? Everyone knew that her ability to be 'at the table' in the Communion was also hanging in the balance. She mentioned a phrase uttered by a fellow Bishop the day before, that the Episcopal Church was 'one body of two minds'. (Never mind that James urges us in no uncertain terms to stop being 'double-minded'!) Her quick intelligence was on offer as she confessed that this difficult reality led her to consider a more 'disturbing' image: that the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion were like 'conjoined twins', two beings in one body.
Let's pick up her rhetoric as quoted by the Anglican Communion Office: "Ethically, one cannot proceed to separate two conjoined twins until one is reasonably certain both can survive on their own and live full lives. "I don't think we're certain that the two offspring are capable of living separately and healthily," she said. [N.B. - It was at this point that she made the remark I note below.] "My sense is that the original resolution is the best that we're going to do today," she added."
What the masterful spin doctors at ACNS left out, as I note above, was a striking double entendre intended to appeal to the ancient paternalism of the House: "If we try to effect the separation now, they will not survive." Perhaps she didn't mean it, but these words are capable of a pernicious double meaning, an imperialistic and arrogant thrust. And to be honest, this is what I heard: 'if we separate now, the Anglican Communion will not survive.' It is notable that no other source I've seen for her remarks even hints at this nuance; and indeed, when she spoke to the House of Deputies some minutes later in a highly dramatic point of personal privilege, she stepped back from a gory and unsavory specificity of analogy to a more persuasive and general one.
To the House of Deputies she said: "I am fully committed to the full inclusion of gay and lesbian Christians in this church," she said. "I certainly don't understand adopting this resolution as slamming the door. I think if you do pass this resolution you have to be willing to keep working with all your might at finding a common mind in this church." And so strangely, the creature with two heads is offered to us as miraculously coming to a 'common mind'.
You can be forgiven if you feel a bit distrustful here. One thing our sharp able Presiding Bishop elect is going to bring to the table a new dynamic — one of radical doctrinal and rhetorical confusion. Consider that just before she addressed both Houses she stressed in her inaugural sermon at the closing Convention Eucharist that we needed above all to set aside fear. She said using dense and clashing images: "Fear is a reaction, unconscious response to something that is so essential that it takes the place of God. I cannot go on living without it, my bank account, my theological framework, or my sense of being in control. That bloody cross brings new life into the world. Colossians calls Jesus the first born of all creation. Our mother Jesus gives birth to a new creation and we are his children. We are going to have to give up fear. Do not be afraid. God is with you."
We are being taken by the hand and spoken to in hypnotic cadences. The first thing she says is important and true, we need to set aside self interest and our idolatrous nature. But then she proceeds to take us off course, using language stolen from Scripture, hoping we will nod our heads as she identifies "creation" as the source of Jesus and thus creation as the source our salvation. When the Julian of Norwich borrowed a rich late medieval monastic tradition of speaking of Jesus as our 'mother', she was thinking only of our soul's relationship to God. She would have been shocked by the literalistic metaphor of Jesus giving birth. We are brothers and sisters in Christ, not his children. We are children of God, our heavenly Father.
And so we received a first clear glimpse of the labored inverted spirituality of our new neo-gnostic unorthodox Primate. And thus she spoke to us, in a pragmatic contradiction, and urged us all to vote based on our fears of not having any future together, conjoined twins, unable to live without each other, unable to live full lives with each other. There will be more and more of this type of confusion in the days ahead. It is good that our Presiding Bishop elect is a woman; it is a grave misfortune that she is in all probability an aggressive heretic.
But we digress; there will be much discussion about whether the actions of both Houses represents the will of an identifiable 'center' or the rediscovery of stable 'core' of the church; the simple fact is that it does express a sincere desire that we stay together long enough to work through the essentials of the controversy around new understandings of human sexuality. In sum, the resolution is a very practical prayer for unity dependent upon the working of the Spirit through the various real bonds of relationship.
Over and over again in the debate on this resolution in the House of Deputies, especially after the clumsy parliamentary maneuvers by some to rule the motion out of order, Deputies stood up to take back their identity as Anglicans, which had slipped away the day before in the defeat of A161/162. Over and over again we heard, 'we will not allow our church to be hijacked by the politically infected and well organized extremes; we still believe this church has a middle way, a via media'.
It is quite true that this may be a passing chimera. There are weaknesses and dangers to staking our future destiny on so small a resolve. Shortly after the news that the House of Deputies had passed resolution B-033 the two wings of the church often singled out for conspiratorial mischief issued statements signifying that the fissures in the fabric of communion overlaying our old and tired body remained.
Eleven American Anglican Network Bishops with jurisdiction said, among other things: "Sadly, because of statements made by members of this House [of Bishops] at this Convention, we must question whether this General Convention is misleading the rest of the Communion by giving a false perception that they intend actually to comply with the recommendations of the Windsor Report. We therefore disassociate ourselves from those acts of this Convention that do not fully comply with the Windsor Report." And in true form, approximately 20 bishops from 'the other side of the aisle' issued a statement through John Chane, Bishop of Washington D.C. that they had not voted for the resolution and would defy it.
Indeed, there may be the barest break in the contest as the Diocese of Newark is poised to announce its nominations for election to the Episcopate this fall. Given that B-033 is so specific about only withhold consent from consecrations we can expect that nominations will go forward and even an election of a person in a same gendered relationship will precipitate our crisis all over again. And looking ahead to the next General Convention we can expect a full out effort to ask for public blessings of same sex unions.
In dioceses like our own, it will take all the leadership our bishop can muster, and most likely a new found resolve to demonstrate that he is a Bishop who will take up the Windsor Report's challenge, to be a teacher of Holy Scripture. The question is, will Colorado be a 'Windsor Diocese'? Indeed, having listened carefully to the lingo of Special Committee 26, dioceses throughout the Episcopal Church will make declarations that reveal that they are 'Windsor+'[plus] or 'Windsor—'[minus]. The final response of this convention, however hard fought and hard won, is clearly Windsor—.
Many will claim that this is besides the point, as we will have moved beyond the Windsor Report altogether. There will be a great deal of pressure, even in our own diocese, for a more formal recognition of some kind of pastoral service instituting celebrations of same gendered relationships. It is too soon to tell how much controversy and impairment this will bring to individual dioceses and the relationships between clergy and parishes with their bishops. Thus what the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Primates say next will be crucial and set the boundaries of our ongoing life together. Or at least let us hope for as much.
The hope of the Resolution B-033 is that we will "receive and embrace the Windsor Report's invitation" to a process. In the days ahead we will hear a lot of talk about "the Windsor Process" which will now be defined by the responses of the various Instruments of Unity of the Anglican Communion. The spirit of the resolution and the truly miraculous way it came to be passed by such an overwhelming majority does bode well for us as we will to live into "the highest degree of communion possible" — whatever that will look like.
But in order to give this moment in our history the chance to bear fruit we will have to continually remind ourselves of how the General Convention 'spoke'. It spoke from the gut, from the deepest place of inarticulate desire, from the place revealed by the mother of the child when Solomon said 'Bring me a sword and I will divide the child in two.' Convention spoke because if it didn't speak the church would have been rent asunder at the end of bitter inconclusive quarrel. Perhaps now, should we choose to relinquish the child in order to save its life, the wise elders in the Anglican Communion will be able to give us back our child, and the true mother, the true church will be revealed. [1 Kings 3:16-28]
Jesus prayed his high priestly prayer [John 17], and this continual intercession for the church means that he prayed it for us even as the battle lines were being drawn on either side. A shepherd's staff was raised in the middle of the throng holding back the waters. As the forces of the heavenlies clashed the holy breath of God was unleashed holding back the armies of the north and shielding the armies of the south. A deafening clamor of tribes and nations, languages and tongues, exploded calling on God's truth to be revealed. The Holy Spirit descended and hovered, as in the beginning of time, and something new was born.
What is this new thing? Dare we call it a new church? Not yet. BUT IT WILL BE. It will be a new creation as we seek to be reconciled to our Anglican family around the globe. The rest of our brothers and sisters in Christ around the Communion must still speak to us, must still exercise their gift of interpretation 'in the great congregation'. In this regard we can be hopeful that the rush of the mighty wind created a space not only for continued conversation but for the change of heart that will allow the extremes to relinquish their agendas for the sake of the whole. What is impossible to see at a distance but what was clear on the Convention floor was that the radicals on all sides were marginalized by their own sense of 'righteousness'. We must all pause and remember that many individuals found it hard to see themselves in the final resolution, and sacrificed much on both left and right to vote for it. In so doing the body of the Convention voted to embrace humility and sacrifice, truth and reconciliation.
The left in our church wants to talk about reconciliation without repentance, the right wants to talk about truth without recognizing the true sin of schism, the spirit of divorce. For those of us who are orthodox, it is a difficult almost excruciating time in the history of our church because liberals control the machinery office and appointments. The orthodox are discriminated against and discounted and weary of the battle. And nothing will change if we keep playing the old game. The question will be going forward, did this final vote change the terms of engagement? It all depends upon what the Communion says next.
In South Africa not long ago, the only way forward after decades of civil war and even after the winning of an improbable peace was to set up a non-legislative tribunal to administer justice, but founded on the foundation of mercy. Wise magistrates learning from the spirit of Solomon understood that to take away the stain of sin and enmity in order to invite true repentance and healing required a process of bearing witness to both truth and reconciliation. We hunger and thirst to walk together, but we must be able to walk with clean hearts and clear consciences. Surely this is where the resolve to become a part of a new Anglican Covenant is so important. We have now said that we want to be a part of a body of Christians who hold each other accountable.
Let me give you an example. As I was walking out of the House of Deputies after the vote on B-033 I ran into our Bishop. I asked him what he thought. He said what happened was significant. We were interrupted by a woman who came up to thank him for his role in getting the resolution passed. +Rob turned to me and said, 'I've got to go, but if you want to know how important this resolution is in the life of the Anglican Communion, talk to her. It turns out that Lauren has been the Episcopal Church's missionary to the Sudan for the past eight years. Lauren was invited by the bishop of the Diocese on the northernmost border of Southern Sudan. This is a place where there are no roads and services, where the northern army comes in to kill and round up whole villages. Her jobs include running an orphanage, starting schools and teaching at their 'seminary'.
She tries to explain what life in America is like, but the gap is too wide. Her bishop explains that they don't believe in what the American church is doing, but they need to know that we will show by our actions that we want to stay at the table in the same family. The Bishop told her before she left to bring her back anything, anything as a sign of our understanding of the cost of their witness.
The people of this poor and persecuted church love the Episcopal Church; they are the only ones who have stayed and tried to fight the poverty and despair. And in turn, it is only the Anglican church in that part of the Sudan who is building schools, orphanages and clinics. It is clear that right here, on the 21st century's Mason Dixon line, we need each other desperately. On Tuesday morning when the Convention failed to pass any resolutions, she had nothing to show to her Bishop. It would have been a disaster. After the events of Wednesday she will go back with confidence that their common mission can go on for now. She will describe to him in her own words this Convention's desire to salvage our torn and frayed bonds of affection. I was so moved by all that she shared with me that I gave her the money I would have spent the last three days during my fast to buy goats for the orphanage.
I kept thinking of my torn pants and mended pants off and on that evening. I wore them every day of Convention as a prophetic sign. On Wednesday night I had tried to speak into the microphone in front of 1,500 people my own prayer: "Repair the tear!" But I was cut off. After all, the speaker just before me had been the Archbishop of York, a Ugandan, who just might well be the next Archbishop of Canterbury. They didn't really need to hear what I had to say — except you might say, for the prayer. They needed to hear the prayer.
As the seamstress told me in no uncertain terms, there are two ways you can fix this. The quick and easy solution will show and it will not be pretty. The more costly solution will take more time, more money and more expertise than we have on site! At that moment in time, since I only had one good pair of pants to my name, I chose to have them mended and not rewoven. That's exactly what happened as General Convention concluded. Both Houses voted to quickly mend the tear, in humble and fervent hope that the way can be found going forward to reweave the fabric of our Communion.
I cannot imagine how to bring my thoughts to a fitting conclusion were it not for yet another example of the pure graciousness of divine appointment which was woven throughout my time in Columbus. I kept running into everyone who three years ago, after I had left the East to come West, I thought I would never see again, much less engage in substantial and heart probing conversations. This morning, just when I thought all the 'meetings' were over, I was down in the lobby of the hotel checking out. I walked over to the table where the Convention Daily was on offer. Picking up a copy of the final issue headlined, 'Presiding Bishop Calls Joint Session Together', I turned to head toward the elevator. And who should I run into but the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church himself, the Rt. Rev. Frank T. Griswold.
Dressed in a gold T-shirt and faded jeans I didn't recognize him at first. But somehow the accident of the moment made it easy to extend my hand and introduce myself. Or rather re-introduce myself. For as many of you know, Kathy and I were married at St. Martin's in the Field some 22 years ago where Kathy had been received into the Episcopal Church and +Frank was the Rector. Whenever I run into Bishop Griswold I know that he has to search his memory banks for me, though he always seems to recall our connection when I mention Kathy. And so I did and so he smiled as we both made our way to the door of the elevator.
For just an an awkward second I didn't know what to say, so I said the first thing that came to my mind. "You must be exhausted... A nod of agreement and a further slight pause. "Well, it looks like you pulled the rabbit out of the hat this time!" The elevator door opened, and not missing a beat the archbishop thankfully smiled, and said: You know Andy, I was just talking to a reporter from NPR. As I was describing all the events of these last days, he said to me: "Bishop, you could describe what happened as a 'compromise'; but if you ask me it sounds like more of a 'consensus'." And so he pressed the button for the 21st floor penthouse suite and I pressed the button for my destination.
Longing to say something I felt about again without words: "Interesting... [pause] It's good to see you looking so relaxed. I'm sure that Kathy would like to be remembered to you." And so he agreed.
Such a strangely formal thing to say at a time like that. At a time such as this these are the words we have, words of simple greeting and observation, words that somehow keep relationships alive, and celebrate formalities that allow a hidden and germinating substance to evolve.
I got off at the 14th floor and said good bye. I walked toward my room pondering the fact that I had just had a conversation with a Primate. A singular conversation. What he was saying to me I think was that compromise in this instance, at this point, at this time in our life together as the Body of Christ, doesn't have a chance in hell to last. A consensus might just do the trick.
I'd be willing to start there. I hope many others are too.
I'm praying with all my heart that we have indeed won for ourselves the battle that needed to be won this week. Not a few speakers used the same analogy from both the podium and the floor. They would ask: 'what are we fighting for'. And while we were thinking of our various answers, the prophetic but puzzling reply punch line would be articulated: 'we are fighting for each other.' Embracing each other, enemies who would be friends, is what reconciliation is all about. This embrace and this embrace alone for the time being is our consensus.
Now the question is: can we hang on to each other? Now it is our task in the days ahead, in spite of the many pressures that will threaten to tear us apart from left and right, to ensure that we don't let go, turn, balance each other, and make those baby steps that will allow us in holy and humble agreement to walk together, and not apart.
In Christ's Wondrous Love,
Andy+
I was hoping to post an update last night, but with all the work still to be done in our Deputation to 'make it a wrap' I offer these reflections as a first pass at summarizing "the results" of Convention.
My day began as I woke up to pray at 2:30 AM and concluded by falling into bed at 2:00 AM. As the gavel went down on the House of Deputies at 6:00 PM, the Colorado Deputation left the field of engagement and headed back to headquarters at the Columbus Renaissance Hotel. We threw on some more comfortable clothes, gathered in the lobby with +Rob and Ginger, members of the ECW delegation, convention volunteers from Colorado. and grabbed taxis to the famous "Germantown" area of Columbus, for a lovely 'memorial' dinner at the restaurant 'Barcelona'. It was a blessing just to be together and appreciate one another's good faith, hard work and new found friendship.
If Tuesday was the day the Episcopal Church was stricken with a heart attack, Wednesday the paddles of the apostolic office were applied and we witnessed a surprising and unexpected resuscitation. Outgoing Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold finally showed decisive leadership by calling together the two Houses of Deputies and Bishop in a joint session. +Frank's statement to that joint House were some of the clearest and most urgent words I have ever heard him speak. They are worth quoting in full because they also summarize eloquently the turn in events that brought the Convention to this precise turn — including Tuesday's late night passing of A166 supporting the idea of the Episcopal Church joining in the process for developing an Anglican Covenant. Here is what "our chief pastor" had to say to us:
"When I became your Presiding Bishop eight and a half years ago, I called the church to the costly discipline of conversation. At that time I pointed out that the word conversation and the word conversion come from the same Latin root. I said that to enter into conversation deeply, and with an undefended heart, opened the way to conversion. By conversion I did not mean one point of view capitulating to another – but rather a new way of seeing one another and recognizing Christ in one another. The conversion of which I spoke had less to do with a change of mind and more to do with a change of heart.
"As part of our response to the Windsor Report, we have passed Resolution A159 which reaffirms "the abiding commitment of the Episcopal Church to the fellowship of churches that constitute the Anglican Communion and to seek to live into the highest degree of communion possible." We have also passed Resolution A166 supporting the process of developing an Anglican Covenant for the purpose of strengthening our Communion. We have thus indicated our desire for continuing conversation.
"However, unless there is a clear perception on the part of our Anglican brothers and sisters that they have been taken seriously in their concerns it will be impossible to have any genuine conversation. Therefore there will be no conversion and the bonds of affection which undergird communion will be further strained. We will be less able to recognize Christ in one another and the mission we are called to share together for the sake of the world will be further diminished and undermined.
"For our voices to be heard there needs to be a clear sense that we are not ignoring the sensibilities of those who are genuinely unable to understand what we have done. Yes, there is anger, but to a greater degree, there is confusion.
"And conversation works. I have already experienced some of its potential fruits in the course of primates' meetings, as difficult as they sometimes have been. There have been times when, with great difficulty, I have had to receive before I was able to give. Such moments have not been easy but they have been necessary.
"Humility is not an easy virtue but it is very much required in this season. Humility requires at times a stance of restraint in order that something larger can happen. There are times when what may appear to be a step backward may be called for in order to go forward.
"Let me say here: we need to be mindful of the dynamics that have brought us to where we are. Some among us feel that expressions of restraint with regard to the office of bishop demean the dignity of those among us who are gay and lesbian. Others among us may be opposed to expressions of restraint, which would make it more difficult for them to justify their apparent need to establish a separate ecclesial body. Nothing would better serve such purposes than to be able to say that we, because of our action or inaction, have chosen to walk apart from the rest of the Communion. In a strange way, those with very different views are able to vote on the same side of the question.
"However, resolutions passed thus far indicate a desire on the part of the majority to find a way forward that may require relinquishments on all sides. The majority of us, whom I describe as the diverse center – made up of divergent opinions but unified by a common sense of being church together for the sake of mission, do not want to take a step that precludes further steps and genuine conversation.
"I have said that conversation works and that I have seen the fruits of difficult conversations as hearts and minds have been opened. I want our 26th Presiding Bishop and our members of the Anglican Consultative Council to have an opportunity to be at the table, to engage in those conversations.
"This is the final day of General Convention. What I believe we actually yearn for has not been adequately reflected through the workings of our legislative processes. Our conversations in both Houses reveal a much greater complexity. We must now act with generosity and imagination so that our actions are a clearer reflection of the willingness of the majority of us to relinquish something in order to serve a larger purpose.
"As your Presiding Bishop and chief pastor, I now ask both houses to consider the following resolution. I do so knowing that consideration in the House of Deputies may require special action.
Resolution B003, "On the Election of Bishops"
Resolved, [the House of Deputies concurring,] that the 75th General Convention receive and embrace the Windsor Report's invitation to engage in a process of healing and reconciliation; and be it further
Resolved, that this Convention therefore call upon Standing Committees and bishops with jurisdiction to exercise restraint by not consenting to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion.
"I will close this session with a prayer and ask the bishops to return promptly to their House to reconvene in order to consider this resolution. [Presiding Bishop Griswold led the session in prayer.] The joint session is now ended."
It is hard to describe adequately the sheer gravity and electricity of these words, given the usual muddled conceptuality of a Frank Griswold paragraph. For those who followed the intricacy of the intensely argued resolutions of the previous week, this resolution shows diplomatic genius. In fact, the speculation of almost everyone is that a specific request from +Rowan Williams himself is behind the precise wording. Five bishops are listed as signatories to this resolution, including our very own Rob O'Neill. All five of the bishops of the Special Committee are to be heartily commended and thanked for their faithful and heroic labor that won for them the moral and spiritual authority to make this resolution to the divided "houses" of the Episcopal Church.
It is beyond doubt that +Frank and others called +Rowan Williams and asked 'what do you need.' And whether the Anglican Communion Office offered precise wording or not, they surely said something like, 'if you can't deliver two moratoria, we'll take the essential one — along with your commitment to walk with us'. In its first resolve, the resolution signifies 'we want to be in'; and in the second resolve it makes it real by alluding to one single but immutable fact, stated without naming names: 'for now brothers and sisters no more bishops living in same gendered unions.'
Gone are the raft of other concerns of the Special Commission and Committee, the canonical anxieties over nominations and elections, the apologies required of various parties, and a moratorium on public rites blessing same gender unions. And so it appears that the result of the great battle of this convention is a classic compromise. If one part of the church got a certain kind of bishop in 2003, another far larger part of the church got that bishop taken off the table in 2006.
The resolution played quite differently in the House of Bishops as opposed to the House of Deputies. In a remarkable debate among themselves, the bishops faced for the first time, the reality of the clock. Just as they had waited until that moment to talk turkey about what the rest of the Communion wanted, they were tempted to fiddle as the bridge from 815 Fifth Avenue to Canterbury burned. A completely inadequate substitute was proposed, debated and then withdrawn after a short recess. As +Frank called the House back together after recess, his impatient anger showed as he announced to the House: "I hope you realize that you are voting on whether or not the Bishops of the Episcopal Church will be invited to Lambeth". It was shocking but true. In the next breath +Frank allowed as this was only his "opinion", but the reality of cancelled plane reservations in 2008 was never more real to that body.
At a key moment in the debate among the bishops on the substitute resolution, the Presiding Bishop elect, +Katherine Jefferts Schori stood up to speak. What would she say? Everyone knew that her ability to be 'at the table' in the Communion was also hanging in the balance. She mentioned a phrase uttered by a fellow Bishop the day before, that the Episcopal Church was 'one body of two minds'. (Never mind that James urges us in no uncertain terms to stop being 'double-minded'!) Her quick intelligence was on offer as she confessed that this difficult reality led her to consider a more 'disturbing' image: that the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion were like 'conjoined twins', two beings in one body.
Let's pick up her rhetoric as quoted by the Anglican Communion Office: "Ethically, one cannot proceed to separate two conjoined twins until one is reasonably certain both can survive on their own and live full lives. "I don't think we're certain that the two offspring are capable of living separately and healthily," she said. [N.B. - It was at this point that she made the remark I note below.] "My sense is that the original resolution is the best that we're going to do today," she added."
What the masterful spin doctors at ACNS left out, as I note above, was a striking double entendre intended to appeal to the ancient paternalism of the House: "If we try to effect the separation now, they will not survive." Perhaps she didn't mean it, but these words are capable of a pernicious double meaning, an imperialistic and arrogant thrust. And to be honest, this is what I heard: 'if we separate now, the Anglican Communion will not survive.' It is notable that no other source I've seen for her remarks even hints at this nuance; and indeed, when she spoke to the House of Deputies some minutes later in a highly dramatic point of personal privilege, she stepped back from a gory and unsavory specificity of analogy to a more persuasive and general one.
To the House of Deputies she said: "I am fully committed to the full inclusion of gay and lesbian Christians in this church," she said. "I certainly don't understand adopting this resolution as slamming the door. I think if you do pass this resolution you have to be willing to keep working with all your might at finding a common mind in this church." And so strangely, the creature with two heads is offered to us as miraculously coming to a 'common mind'.
You can be forgiven if you feel a bit distrustful here. One thing our sharp able Presiding Bishop elect is going to bring to the table a new dynamic — one of radical doctrinal and rhetorical confusion. Consider that just before she addressed both Houses she stressed in her inaugural sermon at the closing Convention Eucharist that we needed above all to set aside fear. She said using dense and clashing images: "Fear is a reaction, unconscious response to something that is so essential that it takes the place of God. I cannot go on living without it, my bank account, my theological framework, or my sense of being in control. That bloody cross brings new life into the world. Colossians calls Jesus the first born of all creation. Our mother Jesus gives birth to a new creation and we are his children. We are going to have to give up fear. Do not be afraid. God is with you."
We are being taken by the hand and spoken to in hypnotic cadences. The first thing she says is important and true, we need to set aside self interest and our idolatrous nature. But then she proceeds to take us off course, using language stolen from Scripture, hoping we will nod our heads as she identifies "creation" as the source of Jesus and thus creation as the source our salvation. When the Julian of Norwich borrowed a rich late medieval monastic tradition of speaking of Jesus as our 'mother', she was thinking only of our soul's relationship to God. She would have been shocked by the literalistic metaphor of Jesus giving birth. We are brothers and sisters in Christ, not his children. We are children of God, our heavenly Father.
And so we received a first clear glimpse of the labored inverted spirituality of our new neo-gnostic unorthodox Primate. And thus she spoke to us, in a pragmatic contradiction, and urged us all to vote based on our fears of not having any future together, conjoined twins, unable to live without each other, unable to live full lives with each other. There will be more and more of this type of confusion in the days ahead. It is good that our Presiding Bishop elect is a woman; it is a grave misfortune that she is in all probability an aggressive heretic.
But we digress; there will be much discussion about whether the actions of both Houses represents the will of an identifiable 'center' or the rediscovery of stable 'core' of the church; the simple fact is that it does express a sincere desire that we stay together long enough to work through the essentials of the controversy around new understandings of human sexuality. In sum, the resolution is a very practical prayer for unity dependent upon the working of the Spirit through the various real bonds of relationship.
Over and over again in the debate on this resolution in the House of Deputies, especially after the clumsy parliamentary maneuvers by some to rule the motion out of order, Deputies stood up to take back their identity as Anglicans, which had slipped away the day before in the defeat of A161/162. Over and over again we heard, 'we will not allow our church to be hijacked by the politically infected and well organized extremes; we still believe this church has a middle way, a via media'.
It is quite true that this may be a passing chimera. There are weaknesses and dangers to staking our future destiny on so small a resolve. Shortly after the news that the House of Deputies had passed resolution B-033 the two wings of the church often singled out for conspiratorial mischief issued statements signifying that the fissures in the fabric of communion overlaying our old and tired body remained.
Eleven American Anglican Network Bishops with jurisdiction said, among other things: "Sadly, because of statements made by members of this House [of Bishops] at this Convention, we must question whether this General Convention is misleading the rest of the Communion by giving a false perception that they intend actually to comply with the recommendations of the Windsor Report. We therefore disassociate ourselves from those acts of this Convention that do not fully comply with the Windsor Report." And in true form, approximately 20 bishops from 'the other side of the aisle' issued a statement through John Chane, Bishop of Washington D.C. that they had not voted for the resolution and would defy it.
Indeed, there may be the barest break in the contest as the Diocese of Newark is poised to announce its nominations for election to the Episcopate this fall. Given that B-033 is so specific about only withhold consent from consecrations we can expect that nominations will go forward and even an election of a person in a same gendered relationship will precipitate our crisis all over again. And looking ahead to the next General Convention we can expect a full out effort to ask for public blessings of same sex unions.
In dioceses like our own, it will take all the leadership our bishop can muster, and most likely a new found resolve to demonstrate that he is a Bishop who will take up the Windsor Report's challenge, to be a teacher of Holy Scripture. The question is, will Colorado be a 'Windsor Diocese'? Indeed, having listened carefully to the lingo of Special Committee 26, dioceses throughout the Episcopal Church will make declarations that reveal that they are 'Windsor+'[plus] or 'Windsor—'[minus]. The final response of this convention, however hard fought and hard won, is clearly Windsor—.
Many will claim that this is besides the point, as we will have moved beyond the Windsor Report altogether. There will be a great deal of pressure, even in our own diocese, for a more formal recognition of some kind of pastoral service instituting celebrations of same gendered relationships. It is too soon to tell how much controversy and impairment this will bring to individual dioceses and the relationships between clergy and parishes with their bishops. Thus what the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Primates say next will be crucial and set the boundaries of our ongoing life together. Or at least let us hope for as much.
The hope of the Resolution B-033 is that we will "receive and embrace the Windsor Report's invitation" to a process. In the days ahead we will hear a lot of talk about "the Windsor Process" which will now be defined by the responses of the various Instruments of Unity of the Anglican Communion. The spirit of the resolution and the truly miraculous way it came to be passed by such an overwhelming majority does bode well for us as we will to live into "the highest degree of communion possible" — whatever that will look like.
But in order to give this moment in our history the chance to bear fruit we will have to continually remind ourselves of how the General Convention 'spoke'. It spoke from the gut, from the deepest place of inarticulate desire, from the place revealed by the mother of the child when Solomon said 'Bring me a sword and I will divide the child in two.' Convention spoke because if it didn't speak the church would have been rent asunder at the end of bitter inconclusive quarrel. Perhaps now, should we choose to relinquish the child in order to save its life, the wise elders in the Anglican Communion will be able to give us back our child, and the true mother, the true church will be revealed. [1 Kings 3:16-28]
Jesus prayed his high priestly prayer [John 17], and this continual intercession for the church means that he prayed it for us even as the battle lines were being drawn on either side. A shepherd's staff was raised in the middle of the throng holding back the waters. As the forces of the heavenlies clashed the holy breath of God was unleashed holding back the armies of the north and shielding the armies of the south. A deafening clamor of tribes and nations, languages and tongues, exploded calling on God's truth to be revealed. The Holy Spirit descended and hovered, as in the beginning of time, and something new was born.
What is this new thing? Dare we call it a new church? Not yet. BUT IT WILL BE. It will be a new creation as we seek to be reconciled to our Anglican family around the globe. The rest of our brothers and sisters in Christ around the Communion must still speak to us, must still exercise their gift of interpretation 'in the great congregation'. In this regard we can be hopeful that the rush of the mighty wind created a space not only for continued conversation but for the change of heart that will allow the extremes to relinquish their agendas for the sake of the whole. What is impossible to see at a distance but what was clear on the Convention floor was that the radicals on all sides were marginalized by their own sense of 'righteousness'. We must all pause and remember that many individuals found it hard to see themselves in the final resolution, and sacrificed much on both left and right to vote for it. In so doing the body of the Convention voted to embrace humility and sacrifice, truth and reconciliation.
The left in our church wants to talk about reconciliation without repentance, the right wants to talk about truth without recognizing the true sin of schism, the spirit of divorce. For those of us who are orthodox, it is a difficult almost excruciating time in the history of our church because liberals control the machinery office and appointments. The orthodox are discriminated against and discounted and weary of the battle. And nothing will change if we keep playing the old game. The question will be going forward, did this final vote change the terms of engagement? It all depends upon what the Communion says next.
In South Africa not long ago, the only way forward after decades of civil war and even after the winning of an improbable peace was to set up a non-legislative tribunal to administer justice, but founded on the foundation of mercy. Wise magistrates learning from the spirit of Solomon understood that to take away the stain of sin and enmity in order to invite true repentance and healing required a process of bearing witness to both truth and reconciliation. We hunger and thirst to walk together, but we must be able to walk with clean hearts and clear consciences. Surely this is where the resolve to become a part of a new Anglican Covenant is so important. We have now said that we want to be a part of a body of Christians who hold each other accountable.
Let me give you an example. As I was walking out of the House of Deputies after the vote on B-033 I ran into our Bishop. I asked him what he thought. He said what happened was significant. We were interrupted by a woman who came up to thank him for his role in getting the resolution passed. +Rob turned to me and said, 'I've got to go, but if you want to know how important this resolution is in the life of the Anglican Communion, talk to her. It turns out that Lauren has been the Episcopal Church's missionary to the Sudan for the past eight years. Lauren was invited by the bishop of the Diocese on the northernmost border of Southern Sudan. This is a place where there are no roads and services, where the northern army comes in to kill and round up whole villages. Her jobs include running an orphanage, starting schools and teaching at their 'seminary'.
She tries to explain what life in America is like, but the gap is too wide. Her bishop explains that they don't believe in what the American church is doing, but they need to know that we will show by our actions that we want to stay at the table in the same family. The Bishop told her before she left to bring her back anything, anything as a sign of our understanding of the cost of their witness.
The people of this poor and persecuted church love the Episcopal Church; they are the only ones who have stayed and tried to fight the poverty and despair. And in turn, it is only the Anglican church in that part of the Sudan who is building schools, orphanages and clinics. It is clear that right here, on the 21st century's Mason Dixon line, we need each other desperately. On Tuesday morning when the Convention failed to pass any resolutions, she had nothing to show to her Bishop. It would have been a disaster. After the events of Wednesday she will go back with confidence that their common mission can go on for now. She will describe to him in her own words this Convention's desire to salvage our torn and frayed bonds of affection. I was so moved by all that she shared with me that I gave her the money I would have spent the last three days during my fast to buy goats for the orphanage.
I kept thinking of my torn pants and mended pants off and on that evening. I wore them every day of Convention as a prophetic sign. On Wednesday night I had tried to speak into the microphone in front of 1,500 people my own prayer: "Repair the tear!" But I was cut off. After all, the speaker just before me had been the Archbishop of York, a Ugandan, who just might well be the next Archbishop of Canterbury. They didn't really need to hear what I had to say — except you might say, for the prayer. They needed to hear the prayer.
As the seamstress told me in no uncertain terms, there are two ways you can fix this. The quick and easy solution will show and it will not be pretty. The more costly solution will take more time, more money and more expertise than we have on site! At that moment in time, since I only had one good pair of pants to my name, I chose to have them mended and not rewoven. That's exactly what happened as General Convention concluded. Both Houses voted to quickly mend the tear, in humble and fervent hope that the way can be found going forward to reweave the fabric of our Communion.
I cannot imagine how to bring my thoughts to a fitting conclusion were it not for yet another example of the pure graciousness of divine appointment which was woven throughout my time in Columbus. I kept running into everyone who three years ago, after I had left the East to come West, I thought I would never see again, much less engage in substantial and heart probing conversations. This morning, just when I thought all the 'meetings' were over, I was down in the lobby of the hotel checking out. I walked over to the table where the Convention Daily was on offer. Picking up a copy of the final issue headlined, 'Presiding Bishop Calls Joint Session Together', I turned to head toward the elevator. And who should I run into but the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church himself, the Rt. Rev. Frank T. Griswold.
Dressed in a gold T-shirt and faded jeans I didn't recognize him at first. But somehow the accident of the moment made it easy to extend my hand and introduce myself. Or rather re-introduce myself. For as many of you know, Kathy and I were married at St. Martin's in the Field some 22 years ago where Kathy had been received into the Episcopal Church and +Frank was the Rector. Whenever I run into Bishop Griswold I know that he has to search his memory banks for me, though he always seems to recall our connection when I mention Kathy. And so I did and so he smiled as we both made our way to the door of the elevator.
For just an an awkward second I didn't know what to say, so I said the first thing that came to my mind. "You must be exhausted... A nod of agreement and a further slight pause. "Well, it looks like you pulled the rabbit out of the hat this time!" The elevator door opened, and not missing a beat the archbishop thankfully smiled, and said: You know Andy, I was just talking to a reporter from NPR. As I was describing all the events of these last days, he said to me: "Bishop, you could describe what happened as a 'compromise'; but if you ask me it sounds like more of a 'consensus'." And so he pressed the button for the 21st floor penthouse suite and I pressed the button for my destination.
Longing to say something I felt about again without words: "Interesting... [pause] It's good to see you looking so relaxed. I'm sure that Kathy would like to be remembered to you." And so he agreed.
Such a strangely formal thing to say at a time like that. At a time such as this these are the words we have, words of simple greeting and observation, words that somehow keep relationships alive, and celebrate formalities that allow a hidden and germinating substance to evolve.
I got off at the 14th floor and said good bye. I walked toward my room pondering the fact that I had just had a conversation with a Primate. A singular conversation. What he was saying to me I think was that compromise in this instance, at this point, at this time in our life together as the Body of Christ, doesn't have a chance in hell to last. A consensus might just do the trick.
I'd be willing to start there. I hope many others are too.
I'm praying with all my heart that we have indeed won for ourselves the battle that needed to be won this week. Not a few speakers used the same analogy from both the podium and the floor. They would ask: 'what are we fighting for'. And while we were thinking of our various answers, the prophetic but puzzling reply punch line would be articulated: 'we are fighting for each other.' Embracing each other, enemies who would be friends, is what reconciliation is all about. This embrace and this embrace alone for the time being is our consensus.
Now the question is: can we hang on to each other? Now it is our task in the days ahead, in spite of the many pressures that will threaten to tear us apart from left and right, to ensure that we don't let go, turn, balance each other, and make those baby steps that will allow us in holy and humble agreement to walk together, and not apart.
In Christ's Wondrous Love,
Andy+
Day#9: The Battle In The Heavenlies
June/20/2006 10:37 PM | General Convention
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Beloved:
The summary of the key events of this day: with everything hanging in the balance — constraint, conciliarity, communion, and covenant — the General Convention of the Episcopal Church failed to respond with sufficient clarity to the recommendations of the Windsor Report. With stunning speed in the first half hour of the afternoon session, the House voted out of order a substitute resolution that would have put before them a series of quotations from Windsor. It then proceeded to defeat handily an Omnibus Resolution representing the Special Committee's balanced best work in heroic good faith on the two key moratoria asked for. Regarding the question of moratoria, it looks like the Convention will give no response to Windsor.
A Role Call of the vote was read and it was striking how many "conservative" dioceses voted this resolution down with the others. Still I would like to put rest immediately a grassy knoll theory you will hear, that is, that the left and the right joined together to deny the middle. That would not get at what happened here. Not an hour later I ran into Ellis Brust, the public relations officer of the AAC. He confirmed that there are at most 10 “Network” Dioceses. In a vote by orders the lay and clerical votes of each Deputation are counted as one vote. The resolutions were defeated by a margin of 12 votes in the Clerical Order and 17 votes in the lay order. [Math checked by none other than Larry Hitt, our Diocesan Chancellor!]
So did the minoritarian right join the majoritarian left to defeat the vast middle? The gap just cannot be bridged by purely conservative votes, though it might bear more expert analysis. Even so, it is just a mute point, given how notoriously hard it is to say why folks in a minority end up reflecting their conscience in any given vote. I don’t believe any resolution on these matters would have passed period, much less if all the “strict Windsor constructionists” had voted for them. The House has shown on the key issue, that it is just not prepared to distance themselves, slow down, or otherwise step back from the action it took in 2003.
So now the question becomes, is any response better than none? Earlier this week I had thought that the chief goal was to get language that could echo Windsor as much as possible and that might pass the House of Deputies. But it appears that the prophetic-secretariat on both the left and the right has understood how the legislative process of our church works, better in fact than those in charge of it. For some mysterious reason, the Windsor resolutions were always sent by Dispatch to be heard first by the House of Deputies. At first I thought this was a good idea because it meant that the House wouldn't feel dictated to by the Bishops. But then I listened to the Bishops and realized it was otherwise.
Here's what happened late this afternoon. Hearing that the Windsor Resolutions were defeated, the House of Bishops realized it needed to do something. So they began to debate whether they could offer the Deputies another resolution or the Communion a "mind of the House" resolution. What unfolded was far from reassuring, much less hopeful. It turns out that the Bishops had really never had this debate before (!). They are, as a group, much less "political". But it turns out that they are that way because they often avoid the tough questions. After all, for the most part, they like each other, they like being bishops, they like doing things in a very gentlemanly and sisterly way. As bishop after bishop rose to speak, as if talking past each other, making it clear they had delayed this conversation for months, I could conclude only one thing: there was no leadership here.
I began my first blog thoughts coming to Columbus thinking that it would be the Bishops for once that would show leadership and guide us through. Unless they can pull off a miracle tomorrow with a planned joint session of the House, it will appear that I was naive and that the prophets will have a field day. I am praying that the Bishops can act effectively tomorrow as the stated goal is to bring another resolution to the floor, if even to express honestly that the Episcopal Church is officially a "house divided."
I continue to be an intercessor around all this and hope you will join me. It is still in deed and in charity too early to speculate what failure will mean, much less at this late hour, speculate with the harsh light of day what our failure is. We do not lose hope. I am still convince that everything is happening according to God's perfect plan. It appears that our beloved Church is being finally humbled, after so many years of unquestioned privilege and success. For the sake of my Bishop and my Diocese I hope there is another way, a true middle way of responding to Windsor so that the faithful back home will know what their church is as a body in communion, what it teaches and how it intends to order its life. That's a tall order for one day, but this is Christ's Body we're talking about, not ours.
One of our intercessors led me to this classic prophetic text today. It is useful for those whose hearts are weary and whose eyes no longer can resist closing on this scene of battle, no longer able to make sense of it, much less find solace in the manifold and fierce actions and stratagems. Yes, though God speaks and says — "For thus said the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel, 'In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.'" [Isaiah 30:15] — there is still one more day of engagement left.
"When the servant of the man of God rose early in the morning and went out, behold, an army with horses and chariots was round about the city. And the servant said, "Alas, my master! What shall we do?" He said, "Fear not, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them." Then Eli'sha prayed, and said, "O LORD, I pray thee, open his eyes that he may see." So the LORD opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw; and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Eli'sha." [2 Kings 6:15-17]
Thanks be to God that the battle is not ours. Let everyone on the floor of both Houses know: The battle is the Lord's.
Shalom,
Andy+
The summary of the key events of this day: with everything hanging in the balance — constraint, conciliarity, communion, and covenant — the General Convention of the Episcopal Church failed to respond with sufficient clarity to the recommendations of the Windsor Report. With stunning speed in the first half hour of the afternoon session, the House voted out of order a substitute resolution that would have put before them a series of quotations from Windsor. It then proceeded to defeat handily an Omnibus Resolution representing the Special Committee's balanced best work in heroic good faith on the two key moratoria asked for. Regarding the question of moratoria, it looks like the Convention will give no response to Windsor.
A Role Call of the vote was read and it was striking how many "conservative" dioceses voted this resolution down with the others. Still I would like to put rest immediately a grassy knoll theory you will hear, that is, that the left and the right joined together to deny the middle. That would not get at what happened here. Not an hour later I ran into Ellis Brust, the public relations officer of the AAC. He confirmed that there are at most 10 “Network” Dioceses. In a vote by orders the lay and clerical votes of each Deputation are counted as one vote. The resolutions were defeated by a margin of 12 votes in the Clerical Order and 17 votes in the lay order. [Math checked by none other than Larry Hitt, our Diocesan Chancellor!]
So did the minoritarian right join the majoritarian left to defeat the vast middle? The gap just cannot be bridged by purely conservative votes, though it might bear more expert analysis. Even so, it is just a mute point, given how notoriously hard it is to say why folks in a minority end up reflecting their conscience in any given vote. I don’t believe any resolution on these matters would have passed period, much less if all the “strict Windsor constructionists” had voted for them. The House has shown on the key issue, that it is just not prepared to distance themselves, slow down, or otherwise step back from the action it took in 2003.
So now the question becomes, is any response better than none? Earlier this week I had thought that the chief goal was to get language that could echo Windsor as much as possible and that might pass the House of Deputies. But it appears that the prophetic-secretariat on both the left and the right has understood how the legislative process of our church works, better in fact than those in charge of it. For some mysterious reason, the Windsor resolutions were always sent by Dispatch to be heard first by the House of Deputies. At first I thought this was a good idea because it meant that the House wouldn't feel dictated to by the Bishops. But then I listened to the Bishops and realized it was otherwise.
Here's what happened late this afternoon. Hearing that the Windsor Resolutions were defeated, the House of Bishops realized it needed to do something. So they began to debate whether they could offer the Deputies another resolution or the Communion a "mind of the House" resolution. What unfolded was far from reassuring, much less hopeful. It turns out that the Bishops had really never had this debate before (!). They are, as a group, much less "political". But it turns out that they are that way because they often avoid the tough questions. After all, for the most part, they like each other, they like being bishops, they like doing things in a very gentlemanly and sisterly way. As bishop after bishop rose to speak, as if talking past each other, making it clear they had delayed this conversation for months, I could conclude only one thing: there was no leadership here.
I began my first blog thoughts coming to Columbus thinking that it would be the Bishops for once that would show leadership and guide us through. Unless they can pull off a miracle tomorrow with a planned joint session of the House, it will appear that I was naive and that the prophets will have a field day. I am praying that the Bishops can act effectively tomorrow as the stated goal is to bring another resolution to the floor, if even to express honestly that the Episcopal Church is officially a "house divided."
I continue to be an intercessor around all this and hope you will join me. It is still in deed and in charity too early to speculate what failure will mean, much less at this late hour, speculate with the harsh light of day what our failure is. We do not lose hope. I am still convince that everything is happening according to God's perfect plan. It appears that our beloved Church is being finally humbled, after so many years of unquestioned privilege and success. For the sake of my Bishop and my Diocese I hope there is another way, a true middle way of responding to Windsor so that the faithful back home will know what their church is as a body in communion, what it teaches and how it intends to order its life. That's a tall order for one day, but this is Christ's Body we're talking about, not ours.
One of our intercessors led me to this classic prophetic text today. It is useful for those whose hearts are weary and whose eyes no longer can resist closing on this scene of battle, no longer able to make sense of it, much less find solace in the manifold and fierce actions and stratagems. Yes, though God speaks and says — "For thus said the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel, 'In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.'" [Isaiah 30:15] — there is still one more day of engagement left.
"When the servant of the man of God rose early in the morning and went out, behold, an army with horses and chariots was round about the city. And the servant said, "Alas, my master! What shall we do?" He said, "Fear not, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them." Then Eli'sha prayed, and said, "O LORD, I pray thee, open his eyes that he may see." So the LORD opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw; and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Eli'sha." [2 Kings 6:15-17]
Thanks be to God that the battle is not ours. Let everyone on the floor of both Houses know: The battle is the Lord's.
Shalom,
Andy+
Day#8: The Agony of Making a Decision
June/19/2006 11:35 PM | General Convention
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Beloved:
After all the excitement of yesterday, it is hard to imagine how the plot can thicken. In a certain sense, we are at that point in the story where the denouement begins. We have come to the dam and the water is about to burst. After countless committee meetings, parliamentary moves, points of privilege, prayers and words, words, words, the issue was breached. At 5:00 PM EST, the debate began on the Floor of the House of Deputies on the so-called Windsor Resolutions.
As expected, these resolutions are going to have a hard time being accepted by the extreme right and left of the political ecclesiastical spectrum. They are a principled compromise, but a compromise nonetheless. Any language of regret or apology will be resisted by those concerned to honor the actions of the last General Convention. And because of this language, we saw unfold the first volley, the first flanking action, the first amendment. Here is the resolution in its amended form, with the word "straining" replacing the words "breaching the proper constraints of":
Resolved, the House of Bishops concurring, that the 75th General Convention of The Episcopal Church, mindful of "the repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation enjoined on us by Christ" (Windsor Report, paragraph 134), express its regret for straining [strike: breaching the proper constraints of] the bonds of affection in the events surrounding the General Convention of 2003 and the consequences which followed; offer its sincerest apology to those within our Anglican Communion who are offended by our failure to accord sufficient importance to the impact of our actions on our church and other parts of the Communion; and ask forgiveness as we seek to live into deeper levels of communion one with another.
Any language short of regret for actions that led to "a breach in the proper constraints of the bonds of affections" would be insufficient and dangerous at this time in the life of our communion. These bonds of affection are our duty to consult with one another, using the instruments of Unity, and the relationships we cherish across countless ethnic, national and theological boundaries. These bonds of affection are also a respect for the agreed upon teaching, "the mind of the Communion", on human sexuality and the incompatibility of homosexual practice and same gendered unions with Scripture and the tradition of the Church catholic.
Thus I am sad to say, the House passed an amended form on to the House of Bishops that falls well short of the what was requested by the Windsor Commission. We were reminded by various speakers to the amendment that our new Presiding Bishop might want a strong resolution, since she had been a member of the Windsor Commission who agreed to the Windsor language. We were reminded of all the things that people thought they were doing in 2003. We were reminded mostly of how difficult it is to make an apology for someone else — unless of course, the language is precise. It must be said to our shame that no one, during debate, when it was asked what these "bonds of affection were" and their "proper constraint" rose to define the term for the House. It was as if no one had read the Windsor Report. The bonds of affection are that aspect of our belief in the ancient practice of the church to reach decisions that affect all in a conciliar fashion, using the most deliberate instruments of the councils of the church, to consult one another and to refrain from acting precipitously. But no one, not even the hopeful orthodox, could remember how to express themselves in this way on the floor.
And so the amendment passed, and thankfully was not further amended due to lack of time. Resolution A160 has been gutted of any specific and substantial reference for what we owe an apology for. Instead it reads like we are simply sorry for something we did, unintentionally and inadvertently — and others got hurt. The Communion will wonder what we were smoking. The Communion will wonder why it is we don't really understand the first thing about our ecclesiology. The Communion will wonder if we are more arrogant than they thought we were before. And so we lied to each other about what was at stake and in essence refused to apologize.
Take a deep breath. Fine, it's not the end of the world. The resolution will go to the House of Bishops and we will see if they have any more sense and substance.
Now the interesting question becomes: can we leap over that legislative mishap and take the next step. Can we call for a moratoria on just those practices that are at issue: the ordination of bishops living in same gendered relationships and the blessing of same sex unions? Can we call for it graciously and humbly in a way that will elicit a gracious response? Debate on an "omnibus" resolution that combines two key resolutions A161 and A162 began on the floor at about 6:00 PM and lasted an hour and a half. Profound things were said on both sides and real expressions of sacrificial love were heard. For a moment I thought others on the far extremes couldn't miss the call to bear one another's burdens in Christ. But we ran out of time, and we hadn't gotten to the stage of offering amendments, and my Spirit sank to think that we will come back in the morning and start all over again.
You see, the greatest danger is that no resolution will get out of the H
After all the excitement of yesterday, it is hard to imagine how the plot can thicken. In a certain sense, we are at that point in the story where the denouement begins. We have come to the dam and the water is about to burst. After countless committee meetings, parliamentary moves, points of privilege, prayers and words, words, words, the issue was breached. At 5:00 PM EST, the debate began on the Floor of the House of Deputies on the so-called Windsor Resolutions.
As expected, these resolutions are going to have a hard time being accepted by the extreme right and left of the political ecclesiastical spectrum. They are a principled compromise, but a compromise nonetheless. Any language of regret or apology will be resisted by those concerned to honor the actions of the last General Convention. And because of this language, we saw unfold the first volley, the first flanking action, the first amendment. Here is the resolution in its amended form, with the word "straining" replacing the words "breaching the proper constraints of":
Resolved, the House of Bishops concurring, that the 75th General Convention of The Episcopal Church, mindful of "the repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation enjoined on us by Christ" (Windsor Report, paragraph 134), express its regret for straining [strike: breaching the proper constraints of] the bonds of affection in the events surrounding the General Convention of 2003 and the consequences which followed; offer its sincerest apology to those within our Anglican Communion who are offended by our failure to accord sufficient importance to the impact of our actions on our church and other parts of the Communion; and ask forgiveness as we seek to live into deeper levels of communion one with another.
Any language short of regret for actions that led to "a breach in the proper constraints of the bonds of affections" would be insufficient and dangerous at this time in the life of our communion. These bonds of affection are our duty to consult with one another, using the instruments of Unity, and the relationships we cherish across countless ethnic, national and theological boundaries. These bonds of affection are also a respect for the agreed upon teaching, "the mind of the Communion", on human sexuality and the incompatibility of homosexual practice and same gendered unions with Scripture and the tradition of the Church catholic.
Thus I am sad to say, the House passed an amended form on to the House of Bishops that falls well short of the what was requested by the Windsor Commission. We were reminded by various speakers to the amendment that our new Presiding Bishop might want a strong resolution, since she had been a member of the Windsor Commission who agreed to the Windsor language. We were reminded of all the things that people thought they were doing in 2003. We were reminded mostly of how difficult it is to make an apology for someone else — unless of course, the language is precise. It must be said to our shame that no one, during debate, when it was asked what these "bonds of affection were" and their "proper constraint" rose to define the term for the House. It was as if no one had read the Windsor Report. The bonds of affection are that aspect of our belief in the ancient practice of the church to reach decisions that affect all in a conciliar fashion, using the most deliberate instruments of the councils of the church, to consult one another and to refrain from acting precipitously. But no one, not even the hopeful orthodox, could remember how to express themselves in this way on the floor.
And so the amendment passed, and thankfully was not further amended due to lack of time. Resolution A160 has been gutted of any specific and substantial reference for what we owe an apology for. Instead it reads like we are simply sorry for something we did, unintentionally and inadvertently — and others got hurt. The Communion will wonder what we were smoking. The Communion will wonder why it is we don't really understand the first thing about our ecclesiology. The Communion will wonder if we are more arrogant than they thought we were before. And so we lied to each other about what was at stake and in essence refused to apologize.
Take a deep breath. Fine, it's not the end of the world. The resolution will go to the House of Bishops and we will see if they have any more sense and substance.
Now the interesting question becomes: can we leap over that legislative mishap and take the next step. Can we call for a moratoria on just those practices that are at issue: the ordination of bishops living in same gendered relationships and the blessing of same sex unions? Can we call for it graciously and humbly in a way that will elicit a gracious response? Debate on an "omnibus" resolution that combines two key resolutions A161 and A162 began on the floor at about 6:00 PM and lasted an hour and a half. Profound things were said on both sides and real expressions of sacrificial love were heard. For a moment I thought others on the far extremes couldn't miss the call to bear one another's burdens in Christ. But we ran out of time, and we hadn't gotten to the stage of offering amendments, and my Spirit sank to think that we will come back in the morning and start all over again.
You see, the greatest danger is that no resolution will get out of the H