General Convention Update: What’s happening with the Budget

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A committee hearing is taking place with PB&F (I’m assuming Program, Budget, and Finance, but I’m not going to check). Apparently, after all the back and forth, sturm and drang, anguish across the Church, PB&F is using the Presiding Bishop’s proposed budget as its template. Earlier discussions of it on this blog are here and here. Background here.

Jim Naughton had this to say today before the hearing began. He makes several interesting suggestions:

  1. to reduce the diocesan “asking” from  19% to 15% this triennium
  2. to base the budget on the PB’s proposal
  3. to view it as “transitional” and therefore to remove some of the spending on new programs (up to $5 million) that she proposes.

If you’re interested in the Twitter play by play, follow #GC77

Freedom and Faith on the Fourth

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some random thoughts and links. A sampling of stories from Religion Dispatches

Commentary on the US Catholic Bishops’ Fortnight for Freedom campaign

Silk points out the bishops’ selective use of history. They began their fortnight on the feast days of Thomas More and John Fisher, both of whom were executed by Henry VIII. Neither of the two were particularly interested in preserving the religious freedom of those who disagreed with them. More, as Henry VIII’s Lord Chancellor, oversaw the execution of many religious dissidents. John Fisher, as Bishop of London, oversaw book burnings and heresy trials. Their appeal to Becket is equally lame.

On American Civil Religion

The civil religion that’s not idolatrous is one that’s prophetic in the sense that it sees the American project as defined by a set of ideals, as opposed to being defined by a set of accomplishments. So if you imagine America as this great nation which has achieved all of these things, and you list all of the things that it’s achieved, in a way you’re already a little bit on the slippery slope toward idolatry. That always has to be held in balance with a recognition of how often and how much the US falls short of its central ideals that are part of the project.

If you asked my true religion, I would not answer anything practiced in a church, synagogue or mosque. My real religion is America, and I feel privileged that, among the world’s 7 billion people, I am one of the roughly 300 million lucky enough to be an American. This transcends mere patriotism. I believe in what this country stands for, even though I acknowledge its limits and failures. As individuals, we are no better than most(selfishness and prejudice having survived). As a society, we have often violated our loftiest ideals (starting with the acceptance of slavery in 1787). Our loud insistence of “exceptionalism” offends millions of non-Americans, who find us exceptional only in our relentless boasting.

Rhetorically, civil religion appears to be opposed to conflict and war; practically, though, it is deeply indebted to both.  For if civil religion is the appropriation of religion by politics, there is nothing more serious for politicians to do than to justify killing and dying, and nothing gets that job done better than coupling religion and war.  If we carry Hunter’s statement above to its conclusion we might note how the culture wars begat the Civil War which begat an American civil religion.

A face of homelessness in 21st century America

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A lengthy article in Rolling Stone about formerly middle-class people now living out of their vehicles in Santa Barbara, in part thanks to an innovative program allowing overnight parking in church (and other) parking lots. One went from owning a nursery that grossed nearly $300,000/yr and now can’t find work as a sales person in a nursery:

The Great Recession cost 8 million Americans their jobs. Three years after the economy technically entered recovery, there are positions available for fewer than one out of every three job seekers. In this labor market, formerly middle-class workers like Curtis and Concita Cates and Janis Adkins and Sean Kennan cannot reliably secure even entry-level full-time work, and many will never again find jobs as lucrative and stable as those they lost. Long-term unemployment tarnishes résumés and erodes basic skills, making it harder for workers to regain high-paying jobs, and the average length of unemployment is currently at a 60-year high. Many formerly middle-class people will never be middle-class again. Self­identities derived from five or 10 or 40 years of middle-class options and expectations will capsize.

 

Why bother with General Convention anyway? The future of denominational identity

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A couple of blog posts to help put GC 2012 in context.

First from David Lose: Five reasons denominations are passé.

3) Inordinate amounts of funding are spent on maintaining denominational structures and bureaucracies, money that could be spent on mission. Even though every denomination I know has in recent years cut way back on spending, eliminated various divisions or boards, or extended the times between major assemblies or conventions, denominations are still expending vast sums of money to prop up dated denominational bureaucracies. Would it not make sense to conserve resources by efficiently combining structures? Are seven or eight struggling denominational publishing houses better than one robust one? Where there are three beleaguered denominational seminaries in a single region, might not one healthy pan-denominational school suffice? (And we haven’t even started on congregations!) Think of what might happen if the savings were channeled to funding creative media campaigns that didn’t extol the virtues of one denomination but taught the Christian faith.

His other reasons include denominational identity is confusing, even meaningless in a post-Christian world; differences among denominations are relatively minor; and often denominational identity depends more on ethnic and cultural loyalties over theological conviction.

He concludes:

Bottom line: while I love my denominational heritage and am all for a robust theological identity and spirited theological conversation, I’d give up denominational identity and structure in a heartbeat if it meant a more unified, comprehensible, and compelling witness to the Gospel. How do we move in this direction? To tell you the truth, I haven’t the foggiest idea. (I know that I don’t think non-denominational churches are the answer, as they’ve essentially become denominations minus any sense of organization.) Do I even think it’s possible, given how much we have invested in our denominations and the good work they still accomplish? Again, you’ve got me. But I do know it’s time to raise these questions and initiate a conversation about mutual collaboration and mission that runs far beyond anything our parents or grandparents would have dreamed possible.

There’s a great deal to ponder here, although I wonder if there aren’t significant incarnational aspects of theology, liturgy, and polity that are expressed via the traditional denominations, aspects that can be lost if one adopts “generic” Christianity. People respond to and experience God differently and the denominations may be in part an adaptive response to those very real differences.

Meanwhile, Laura Everett ponders the disappearance of denominational identity on facebook:

A scan of my peers on Facebook turns up more personalization; I invite you to do the same. Many of my clergy friends are not using their singular denominational labels instead preferring labels like: “Christian Unitarian Universalist Witchy Trancescendentalist Jungian” (a UUA pastor), “Open Minded Evangelical Protestant Christian” (an Evangelical Covenant Church pastor), “Critical Thinking Faith, with a dose of common sense realism” (a dually ordained American and National Baptist minister), “Cake or Death?” (an Episcopal priest), and my favorite “Don’t make me jump a pew” (a United Methodist pastor).

Everett is Executive Director of the Massachusetts Council of Churches and wonders about the implications of shifting denominational identity for the ecumenical movement.

Whatever her concerns, I think Lose is right to locate a central problem for the future in bloated denominational structures and organization. There is news today that a group of bishops has proposed a resolution to reduce TEC’s asking from the dioceses from 19% to 15%. That’s the percentage of diocesan budgets that is supposed to go to the Episcopal Church. That’s the amount of money that can’t be spent on local projects, on outreach in local communities, congregational development, church planting, Christian formation.

But Lose points to something else, as well. The energy we spend on denominational matters is energy taken away from local efforts, including local ecumenical efforts. One of the questions I’ve asked repeatedly is how Madison’s downtown churches can work together effectively on issues that matter to us and to the city. We don’t work at all together, or very little, and often efforts to come together are thwarted by the realities of life, by busy schedules and the like.

Power made perfect in weakness–lectionary reflections for Proper 9, Year B

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This week’s readings are here.

I’ve not had much to say about the presence of selections from II Corinthians in the lectionary these past few weeks. With Paul, it’s always a question whether or not to talk about him. His writing is complex, the context and background equally so. It’s a judgment call. Does one lay out all the  background in order to make a pithy statement or comment on a verse?

With this week’s reading, we are at a central moment in Paul’s self-presentation and his autobiography. The larger context is a deep conflict with the Corinthian community, so deep that Paul writes what he calls “a letter of tears” (some scholars think this passage is part of that letter). His authority has been challenged; he has been attacked personally, and has both wounded others and himself been wounded in the conflict.

The reading for next Sunday is part of his defense. He begins with a description of his own ecstatic religious experience (a vision of or journey to heaven? While there he receives a divine revelation. So he could boast of this to others, but he chooses not to. Indeed, to prevent him from becoming to full of himself (remember this is Paul!), he speaks of a “thorn in the flesh” that troubled him. Three times, he prayed that he would be delivered of this thing, but instead of being healed or freed, Jesus Christ responded to him, “my grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.”

There has been endless, and largely fruitless, speculation on what Paul meant by thorn in the flesh. All sorts of possible explanations, from a wife to epilepsy, have been proposed. Whatever it was, it was a physical weakness, illness, or malady, that caused Paul problems. It also helped him understand the heart of the gospel: “Power made perfect in weakness.”

For Paul, the apparent weakness of Jesus Christ dying on the cross (a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles) is a demonstration of God’s power–power made perfect in weakness. This central paradox is also the heart of Paul’s theology and challenges every effort to make faith in Jesus Christ a road to success in life. In becoming human, Jesus Christ emptied himself, took on frail, human flesh, becoming like us (Philippians 2). That becomes, in Philippians, an opportunity for our own imitation of Jesus Christ. It was a lesson Paul learned from Christ through his “thorn in the flesh.” It is a message he has passed on to us.

It is also a reminder that whatever spiritual height or high we may attain, the truth of our faith is revealed in the incarnation of Jesus Christ, in his suffering and death, in the frailty of our own bodies, and in the frailty of the Body of Christ in which we share with our fellow Christians.

Politics, Partisanship, and Christianity

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Jonathan Merritt reflects on 33 years of the organized Christian Right in an essay on The Atlantic. He asks, “What have we learned?” His response:

First, partisan religion is killing American Christianity. The American church is declining by nearly every data point. Christians are exerting less influence over the culture than even a few years ago, organized religion no longer garners the respect of the masses, and two in three young non-Christians claim they perceive the Christian church as “too political.” Church attendance is declining, and the percentage of Americans claiming no religious affiliation is rising.

Second, we learned that partisan Christianity cannot effectively change our culture. When the religious right formed, conservative Christians were energized around restricting abortion and same-sex marriage, reducing the size of government, and protecting religious freedom. More than a quarter-century later, these same debates innervate the movement. Little progress has been made despite their best efforts, and an increasing number of individuals now recognize the religious right strategy has largely been a failure. The irony of this turn of events is that Christians above all others know that true change must occur in hearts — not just the halls of power.

An interview with Sociologist of Religion Robert Wuthnow, who has recently published Red State Religion:

One way to think about that is that religion and politics is often described by academics and journalists as a kind of knee-jerk reaction: that people are driven by ideology so much that they lose sight of their own self-interest. What seems to be happening in Kansas (and I guess in a lot of places right now in the 2012 election) is that yes, ideology influences people but it doesn’t totally drive their politics or their religion. They are thinking locally: what’s good for us, for our family, how can we make our life better, those sorts of things. In some ways that may involve moral issues; in other ways it may involve economic issues. It may matter a lot in terms of who they vote for, or it may not matter much at all. And that’s what we see in the history of religion and politics in Kansas.

He seems to confirm what Kathy Cramer Walsh has discovered in Wisconsin:

But Walsh, a lifelong Wisconsin resident whose parents were public school teachers, says she first ran up against the public/private divide when visiting a community in northwestern Wisconsin during the spring of 2008.

She says that a group of loggers, most of whom were self-employed, believed that while schoolteachers may work hard during the year, they have cushy positions. Among the perks: great benefits, health care, summers off and an annual salary of about $50,000 a year. “Nobody in this town makes anywhere near $50,000,” says Walsh, paraphrasing comments she heard. “At the lumber mill, they’re making $20,000 and losing their fingers!”

Walsh says when she probes further, asking why people see a public employee/private employee divide and not a rich/poor divide, she gets stares of disbelief.

It seems to come down to what is tangible and what can be controlled. Private-sector workers, many of whom are struggling, perceive that a large portion of their taxes are going to pay for the salaries of public workers. A cut to public-employee wages and benefits would, at least in theory, mean lower taxes.

But these same people don’t see themselves as having any control over the salaries and benefit packages of CEOs in the private sector, says Walsh. Moreover, they don’t really see anything wrong with top executives making big bucks.

Late Developments in the lead-up to General Convention 2012

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General Convention 2012 begins on Tuesday, so bishops, deputies, and everyone else who will be attending are making their final preparations for the trip. That means things are rather quiet on the web after a very intense couple of weeks.

Several commentators have offered their final thoughts. Nick Knisely, head of the deputation from the Diocese of Arizona (and recently elected Bishop of Rhode Island, offers his reflections here. He writes:

The issues confronting this Convention are different in my experience than the ones we’ve been facing. For the last two decades, the primary energy of General Convention has been focused on issues of marriage equality and inclusion. Those questions have been settled for a significant majority of the Episcopal Church, and I don’t think they will occupy much of our time next month, though there will be some important votes taken regarding them. What I think will occupy our time is our response to a broad recognition in mainline churches that our existing governance structures no longer serve the needs of the 21st century church. The Diocese of Arizona joined more than 30 other dioceses in calling for a special General Convention to deal with the issue. I know we will deal with the question somehow, but I couldn’t predict at the moment what we will end up doing. There are many different voices and ideas right now, but there’s no sense of consensus. Given that most of our work as Convention for the past decades has been centered on balancing the desire to speak prophetically and minimize the attendant conflict, arriving at consensus on matters of financial and structural reform is unfamiliar territory for most of the deputies. We know something needs to be done. But we’re not sure, as a body, what that ought to be yet.

Finally, there’s an ongoing broad change in the leadership of the Episcopal Church. The President of the House of Deputies has announced that she will not seek reelection, we don’t have a Vice President at the moment, and many among the rest of the leadership are beginning to retire and step-down. As the House of Deputies considers the election of its next president and vice president, it will be making decisions about leadership style, the nature of the relationship between itself and the House of Bishops, and how the next generation of leaders will be formed. If you’re planning on following the news out of General Convention, that group of decisions seems to me to be the most important ones to track.

Crusty Old Dean prognosticates here.

He also reports on one new development. Along with Susan B. Snook and Scott Gunn, COD will be hosting a meeting, called The Acts 8 Moment:

Together, the three of us would like to invite anyone who is interested to come together in Indianapolis at 9:30 p.m. on July 5 (location TBA – like us on Facebook or follow the Acts 8 Moment on Twitter for details).  We want to start the process by gathering, praying, reading the Bible, and talking together about the church we dream of seeing.  Let’s listen for where the Holy Spirit is calling us to go!  Let’s hear each other’s prayers and dreams!  Let’s enter into our own Acts 8 Moment.

If I were at GC, I would be there. I will be there in spirit, and via twitter.

To keep up with General Convention, the official website has everything you could want to know about the proceedings. Andy Jones has assembled some resources here. He will be blogging as will Bishop Miller.

Other blogs to follow are:

And of course I will be offering my own commentary from afar.