Here are links to various things I talked about last night.
And if you’re a hardcore Episco-geek, here’s the link to the General Convention website (mature audiences only)
And the blogs I mentioned (where to follow the debate)
This evening, I will be making a presentation to a small group of interested Episcopalians on Mission, Structure, and Budget. We’re meeting on Tuesdays in May to talk about the key issues that will be discussed at this summer’s General Convention. This one promises to be a major focus, even though on the surface, it doesn’t seem particularly interesting.
So today, I’m preparing. I’ve got charts and graphs, lots of statistics (I won’t present very much budget detail). But I’m also reading a lot, re-reading the debate that’s been taking place at least since the fall of 2011, and reading other pieces. For example, Seaburynext offers a series of reflections on their “Great Awakening” conference that took place this past January. At it, Bishop Jeff Lee (of Chicago) invited participants to write for themselves permission slips. Bishop Lee, Diana Butler Bass, and others have been reflecting on what was written.
McLaren has this to say:
The same with structure. In the modern/colonial era, colonial structures competed for “religious market share” and each claimed greater legitimacy than the others. As we emerge from that “my structure is better than yours” mindset, we realize that any structure can become problematic … and that any structure (including episcopal ones!) can serve our essential message, meaning, and mission.
That’s why an Episcopal Church that uses organ, incense, and vestments can be more of an emerging church than one that uses a rock and roll band, blue jeans, and uber-casual style. If it’s focused on a missional understanding of the church derived from a Kingdom-of-God understanding of the gospel, it’s emerging from the old paradigms.
If we take those understandings as seriously as we should, we may see Episcopal Churches finding permission to experiment, explore, and evolve into new styles and structures. In that way, Episcopal identity may become more like the fair food or healthy eating movements (united by a common vision and values) and less like the old McDonald’s (united by the externals – the same menu, pricing, uniforms, and golden arches).
I’m struck by what Brian says, given the news we learned today that shows a lack of interest in revising The Hymnal 1982. Those under 30 were most opposed. To use his language, The Hymnal 1982 can be “missional” if it helps us proclaim the Gospel and if we are allowed to experiment and develop new styles alongside it.
Among the things for which people asked permission:
As I read what people wrote on their permission slips, I’m struck by how much we long for permission to turn loose of fear. “Permission to say where the church is failing,” one person requested. “I want permission to try radically new ways of “doing” and “being” (the) Church whether or not they succeed. I want to be allowed the grace to fail,” wrote another. “Permission not to be afraid of failure,” another requested.
Meanwhile, Steven Ayers has some things to say about the role of the clergy in the Episcopal Church of the future.
I’m spending the afternoon and evening today with folks from the Episcopal Church Foundation, the Bishop, and executive council, and the diocesan strategic planning task force. I’m excited about what we’ll be doing–rethinking what it means to be a diocese in the twenty-first century.
I’m also excited because I’ve been thinking about a couple of blog posts I’ve read in the past couple of days. First of all, from my dear old friend, Crusty Old Dean,, who produced another of his impassioned posts on restructuring. His point 4 is what we will be talking about:
4) End parishes as clubs for members with a chaplain to minister to them, set up as Ponzi schemes for committees, which sees recruitment as getting people to serve on committees. Would many of the towns where our Episcopal churches are located even notice, or care, if they were to close? How many of our parishes function solely as clubs for the gathered? How many dioceses have 10%, 15%, 20%, of their parishes on diocesan support? How many dioceses are struggling to function? We have to change not only the diocesan structure, but fundamentally reshape what it means to be a parish and a diocese.
But read the whole thing. He argues that the problem is bigger than we’re imagining. He predicts “total collapse.” As a historian, he provides necessary context, reminding us that the growth and success the Episcopal Church saw in the 20th century was a blip. It was an anomaly, far different from the experience of the church in the nineteenth century.
A post on another blog asks similar questions from a slightly different perspective: “Where have all the rectors gone?”
We’ve seen such enormous social change before in the history of Christianity. and Christianity has been able to respond creatively and in quite unforeseen ways. Take the Evangelical and Methodist revival during the Industrial Revolution in England, when the CoE was still structured like the Medieval Church. Or the twelfth century, when rapid population change and the growth of cities saw the birth of movements like the Franciscans. What will emerge in this rapidly changing cultural context?
I’m somewhat bemused today to realize that my life is coming back full circle. I grew up in the Mennonite Church. In college and graduate school, I attended congregations that grew out of the house church movement, which was an attempt to return both to the Anabaptist roots of the Mennonite Church, and to the experience of the early church, before Christians started building churches and creating elaborate structures. The house churches eventually grew and developed. One I attended rents space from another church and is able to have paid clergy, after decades of volunteers. The same is true of the Mennonite congregation here in Madison. They don’t have the enormous physical plant overhead of most Episcopal parishes.
What might an Episcopal equivalent look like? The problem is that we tend to measure success in terms of structure, program, and buildings, not in changed lives, ministry, and making the good news incarnate in our communities and in the world. That may look very different in different places.
We need to ask the kinds of hard questions Crusty Old Dean is asking. We need to ask them, not only of the structures above us (the Presiding Bishop, 815, General Convention). We also need to ask them at the diocesan level and in our local communities. It’s difficult to grow a congregation in an area that is in the midst of long-term economic and demographic decline, as many small towns are. What is sustainable in such places? What might the metrics for a “thriving” congregation in such a context be? And what might be possible if that congregation no longer needed to focus on paying utility bills and fixing the roof?
This evening, Episcopalians from Madison’s parishes gathered to discuss the proposed liturgy for the Blessing of Same Gender Unions that will be debated and voted on at General Convention 2012. In that liturgy, we read:
Dear friends in Christ,
we have gathered together today
to witness N. N. and N. N. publically committing themselves to one another
and, in the name of the Church, to bless their union:
a relationship of mutual fidelity and steadfast love,
forsaking all others,
holding one another in tenderness and respect,
in strength and bravery,
come what may,
as long as they live.
Ahead of them is a life of joy and sorrow,
of blessing and struggle,
of gain and loss,
demanding of them the kind of self-giving love
made manifest to us in the life of Jesus.
Christ stands among us today,
calling these two people always to witness in their life together
to the generosity of his life for the sake of the world,
a life in which Christ calls us all to share.
Our discussion focused on the differences between this liturgy and the marriage rite in the Book of Common Prayer, and it became clear as we talked that there was considerable uncertainty about the Church’s theology of marriage, and how this proposed rite relates to that theology. We also heard from some who struggle with how the church’s teaching relates to their own experiences and the relationships in which they live and love.
I came home to learn of the passage of Amendment 1 in North Carolina, and read on facebook and twitter of the pain that creates for so many. I will admit my own conflicted nature, because I know that this is an issue that divides people, but also because I don’t think the Church has worked out its theology of marriage adequately. One of the things clergy in attendance at the meeting tonight seemed united on was our discomfort with acting on behalf of the state in signing marriage licenses. Until we’re clear on what marriage means for us theologically, it’s hard to make a case for how we should think about same gender unions.
I will say this about the resources provided by the Standing Committee on Liturgy and Music. I find the proposed liturgy beautiful, well-conceived (at least for the most part), and perfectly adaptable for a marriage rite between heterosexuals as well as LGBT couples. What troubles me most is the theological reflection, which I find odd. It seems to me it ought to begin with the nature of God (relationship inherent in the Trinity) and in human nature–that God creates and calls humans to be in relationship with other humans.
The SCLM resources are available here and in the “Blue Book.”
Who wrote that headline? Sure, it’s the 350th anniversary of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, but there were several others before it: 1549, 1552, 1559; and The Episcopal Church’s BCP is more dependent on that of the Scottish Episcopal Church than the 1662; which is why those documents that claim the 1662 Book of Common Prayer is shared by all Anglicans is just wrong.
The “genius” of the Book of Common Prayer is not in the 1662 edition, but in the work of Thomas Cranmer who was largely responsible for the 1549 and 1552 versions and in the 1559 book that tried to balance the more Protestant and Catholic tendencies of the two earlier ones.
So they’re having the same debate The Episcopal Church is having.
A blog post from an observer outside the meeting provides insight into the similarities and differences between the two debates, and the two denominations.
We might learn from this effort, which apparently got voted down, on how to go about ours. Apparently the plan was devised by outside corporate (!) consultants, gathered steam from the bishops and was supported by some denominational megachurches. It’s largely an effort to streamline authority, which almost always means increased centralization.
The blogger links to the musings of another Methodist, on matters of restructuring and other things. Among the points made:
You might be surprised at how quickly a notion, fad or trend can take hold in certain quarters of this denomination. The desire to immediately act on what some perceive as a good idea, although it may in fact be a fad, is what is meant by the need for “nimbleness” in restructuring.
You can triple the size of the general-church structure or you can wipe it out entirely and it will make almost no difference in membership gain or loss.
Membership growth has more to do with welcoming congregations that offer compelling ministries and good worship. There’s not enough of that. If we’re going to do it, let’s do it right.
I hope people in The Episcopal Church are taking notes and learning from the Methodists here. It’s not the first time they’ve had something to teach us.
A bombshell (well, I think it is) from Bishop Andy Doyle of the Diocese of Texas. He has produced a lengthy document in which he charts a way forward for his diocese. With a foreword by former Secretary of State James Baker III, the paper does not attempt to change minds or force clergy and parishes into actions they don’t want to take.
Doyle begins with the premise that General Convention 2012 will approve Blessings of Same Gender Unions. Given that starting point, Doyle plans to permit one parish in Houston and one in Austin to offer same gender blessings, and also to permit clergy to offer them outside of parishes. Here’s the heart of his proposal:
1. Congregations may choose to take no action, one way or the other.
2. Traditional congregations/rectors may state that they will not conduct or participate in rites for blessing persons of the same gender, sponsor for ordination anyone or employ any clergy who are in a non-celibate relationship outside holy matrimony.
3. Following General Convention, one congregation in Houston and one congregation in Austin will be granted permission to bless same-gender covenants. Both the rector and the congregation must support such a liturgy and must complete the congregational education portion of the process. Additional congregations may request permission in the future. A provision for clergy who wish to do blessings of same-gender covenants outside the church is also included.Meanwhile, the government in the UK is proposing legalizing gay marriage. This has led to considerable debate in the Church of England. It’s worth eavesdropping from this side of the pond for several reasons. First, it’s inconceivable that a Republican administration would propose anything of the sort in the US in the foreseeable future.
The Rev. David Boyd, Rector of St. David’s Austin, has this to say.
This is significant news, a bombshell, even, because it may signal a tipping point. For a diocese the size of this one, and one not known for its leadership on progressive issues, to prepare for the blessing of same-gender unions suggests that Bishop Doyle, at least, expects that outcome from General Convention. Whether that result now becomes more inevitable remains to be seen.
It’s significant in another way, however. For bishops who have been reluctant to allow clergy and parishes to bless same gender unions, this action may offer them a way to approach their own situations. For those who have feared repercussions from conservative parishes and clergy, Doyle’s proposal may leave them with little wiggle room. It’s likely that progressive clergy and parishes will demand from their bishops the same sort of accommodation Doyle has offered his diocese. In other words, Bishop Doyle has roiled the waters.
Speaking of roiled waters, it’s not just the Episcopal Church that will be facing these issues at General Convention. The United Methodists are also on track for a lively debate.
There’s a comparable debate taking place in the United Kingdom as the ruling government proposes legislation for “civil marriages.” It has provoked an outcry from conservative Christians (including some Anglicans). But many in the Church of England welcome the development:
The Bishops of Norwich have weighed in on the debate. They challenge the UK government’s proposal to distinguish “civil” from “religious” marriage and conclude:
We are sympathetic to the full inclusion of gay people in our society and the provision of appropriate means to enable them to maintain stable and lasting relationships. We believe, however, that the redefinition of marriage itself in the law of the land raises other important issues about the nature of marriage itself. The way in which the Government is going about it appears to create a new and ill-defined phenomenon called religious marriage, a novelty liable to generate more problems than the present legislation will solve.
The Bishop of Salisbury has also weighed in:
So, increasingly, there is an evangelical imperative for the Church to recognise that covenantal same sex relationships can be Godly and good for individuals and society; that they are at least like marriage for heterosexuals, and this is a development that many Christians in good faith warmly welcome. For LGBT people it raises question about whether marriage is what they want, but for us as a Church there are things to affirm in this development. It is a disaster that we have allowed the Church to be seen as the opposition to equal civil marriage.
A group of Bishops wrote a letter to The Times(of London) in support of civil marriage:
It is our belief that the Church of England has nothing to fear from the introduction of civil marriage for same-sex couples. It will be for the churches to then decide how they should respond pastorally to such a change in the law.
The folks from GAFCON (FCA, FoCA), or if you’re confused by the alphabet soup, the “real” Anglicans (Nigeria, Uganda, Bob Duncan and friends) are at it again. They met in London this week and offered their proposals for restructuring the Anglican Communion.
Yup, you guessed it–more power to the primates, and none whatsoever to the laity. They propose reducing the role of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who serves as chair of the Primates Council, to simply one of membership, with the chair elected from that body. Such moves would lead inevitably to increased centralization, with the primates becoming the functional equivalent of a curia determining doctrine, membership and everything else for the new Anglican Communion. But where would the curia build its palaces?
This is the latest development in a lengthy process that included many bishops boycotting the 2010 Lambeth Conference and attending an alternative meeting in Jerusalem. The end goal seems to be the creation of an alternative Anglican Communion. They have already begun alternative structures in England, similar to what has become the Anglican Church in North America on this side of the pond.
One possible complication ahead–the next Archbishop of Canterbury. Rumor has it that Archbishop Sentamu of York has thrown his miter into the ring. Originally from Uganda, conservative theologically, tending toward evangelicalism, he would be a logical ally in the effort to reshape Anglicanism after Williams and the failed Anglican Covenant. It would be interesting to see how he would respond to this attempted power grab.
I’m glad they can agree on something. Full story from Episcopal Cafe here. It includes both the politburo’s official communique and a memo to the committee responsible for creating the budget.
The meeting took place in a week when we learned more about the disaffection of millennials from religion. Among the key results:
While only 11% of Millennials were religiously unaffiliated in childhood, one-quarter (25%) currently identify as unaffiliated, a 14-point increase. Catholics and white mainline Protestants saw the largest net losses due to Millennials’ movement away from their childhood religious affiliation.
- Today, college-age Millennials are more likely than the general population to be religiously unaffiliated. They are less likely than the general population to identify as white evangelical Protestant or white mainline Protestant.
- Millennials also hold less traditional or orthodox religious beliefs. Fewer than one-quarter (23%) believe that the Bible is the word of God and should be taken literally, word for word. About 1-in-4 (26%) believe Bible is the word of God, but that not everything in the Bible should be taken literally. Roughly 4-in-10 (37%) say that the Bible is a book written by men and is not the word of God.
We know too well by now about the dramatic decline in mainline Protestantism, and the overall decline in institutional affiliation and respect for institutions. An organization like the Episcopal Church has to work very hard to rebuild that trust. When a debacle like this week’s budget debate occurs, we do nothing to regain that trust. Indeed, it undermines our message and has a significant impact on our message. When, as others have pointed out, this disfunction occurs over a long term (apparently the budget debate was even worse leading up to GC 2009), there may be permanent damage to the institution.
Executive Council is meeting in Salt Lake City. Here’s the ENS report on today’s session. This meeting is taking place against the backdrop of the outrage over the proposed budget–both as proposed and as we are learning about it. As usual, Crusty Old Dean responds eloquently and passionately to today’s developments in that controversy.
The remarks by the leading pooh-bah’s of the EC are available from ENS as well. Bonnie Anderson reprises much of what she said at the CEEP conference I attended in March. I wasn’t impressed then. Her efforts to distinguish institutions from movements and argue that the latter is the future of the church seems to fly in the face of a long history in which every “movement” eventually institutionalizes itself. Just ask Max Weber.
The Presiding Bishop also offered remarks in which she focused on the grief we feel as a result of our loss of place in the establishment and numerical decline:
We are living in post-establishment times, and as a church, we are beginning to recognize that reality. It has brought an enormous amount of grief. The struggles over inclusion are a symptom, but only part of the response to losing a position and way of being that to many people has seemed intrinsic to being an Episcopalian. The post-establishment reality brings grief in abundance as former ways of living, governing, and privilege disappear. Like all kinds of grief, it can elicit anger, denial, and attempts to go back to some remembered golden age. None of those responses heals the grief. Nor can we fix the grief by tinkering with details. Only by living through the grief and loss, and beginning to embrace the possibilities and opportunities for new life will we ultimately find healing. We are a people who believe in resurrection, and we live in a season when acting out of that belief is absolutely essential.
I’m just not sure who she’s talking about: members of the Executive Council, staff at headquarters, bishops and deputies? Certainly not me. I have no grief for a past when the Episcopal Church was the de facto civil religion of the USA. I have no grief for a national denominational structure heavy on bureaucracy (and probably sinecures) with preference for insiders, WASPs, and those to the manor born.
I suppose because I grew up in another tradition, and drank deeply from the theology and spirituality of Anabaptism, I think a church rid of its associations with establishment and dominant culture is finally free to do what God has called the church to be. We are in a moment of extraordinary freedom, possibility and hope.
I came to the Episcopal Church because I encountered Jesus Christ in the bread and wine, in the proclamation of the word, in the liturgy, and in fellowship. I have no commitment to the Episcopal shield, or flag, the blue book, or the red book. I have no emotional attachment to General Convention, to 815 (wherever or whatever that might be). I am a priest of the church because I was called by God, and in spite of efforts by some to dismiss it, in the end the church, in a particular bishop and Commission on Ministry, heard and affirmed that call. I am a priest of the church because I believe that through my ministry in the church I can share the good news of Jesus Christ and offer new life, hope and faith in the Risen Lord in a broken and hurting world.
To do those things, I do not need a national bureaucracy or General Convention. In fact, both of those detract from my ministry because it means that money raised in my local congregation is used to support administration, bureaucracy, and a process that produces a budget with unimaginable errors.It means that energy that might be extended on thinking about reaching people with the good news in an increasingly secular society is deflected toward blog posts like this one.
To share the good news of Jesus Christ, I do need help and support: from the ministry of the laity in my parish, from my local and diocesan clergy colleagues, from my bishop–my pastor–and above all from those networks everyone is talking about, but few seem to be facilitating–networks of people in similar contexts, struggling with similar issues and imagining creative possibilities for the future.
Of the three presentations, I only found Bishop Sauls helpful in pointing a way forward. I’m ready to join that conversation he is hoping will take place, but don’t invite me to a funeral for the Episcopal Church of the twentieth century.
Bishop Stacy Sauls’ opening remarks to today’s meeting of the Executive Council:
The conversation I long to have with you is about putting everything on the table about our common life and looking at it in light of what Jesus said about survival, about how we live our lives to take up our cross and follow him, not just to Calvary but beyond Calvary to Resurrection. I want us to talk about putting everything on the table and rebuilding the Church for a new time that has no precise historical precedent. I think we should put dioceses on the table and ask how the ministry of a bishop relates to a particular people rather than to a particular geography. I think we should put episcopal ministry on the table and ask how bishops should work with each other collegially and how often they should meet together. I think we should put the exercise of primacy in our unique context on the table. I think we have to put how other clergy and laypeople participate in the councils of the church, and more importantly, are encouraged to live out their baptisms by proclaiming the good news of what God has done in Christ by word and example on the table. I think, and this is my particular concern, we have to put how we use the resource a churchwide staff to serve local mission and ministry on the table. Budgets may help us do that, or at least they may give us the occasion to do these things, but budgets themselves should never be the point of any of them. That is the conversation the staff as a whole longs to have with you.
Churches that turn inward will die. At every level, churches that turn inward will die. Those that turn outward, even at the risk of surviving, will thrive. Mission is how we do that. What serves mission will ultimately thrive. Because this is the Gospel. “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it. What does it profit them if they gain the whole world, but lose or forfeit themselves?” The conversation I long to have with you is about how are we, all of us, using the tasks before us to embrace, and not to avoid, the Gospel.
Preaching Grace on the Square 