General Convention Reform

I've never been to the Episcopal Church's General Convention (GC). Thanks to modern technology, I will never need to. This GC has around 1,000 delegates for a church that has less than a million attendees. Add to that, the more delegates a legislative body has, the less gets done. More people means more time for discussion. The GC is both ungainly and expensive.

Were I in charge, which is highly unlikely, I'd change things in the following ways: First, I'd trim the delegates to 1 bishop and 1 lay delegate from every diocese. That cuts the delegates down to slightly over 200 total. Allow for the election of a non-participating, unfunded alternate. But the total funded attendance would be one fifth of the present size. That means instead of using expensive rented facilities, the GC could meet in a parish hall. That would be a lot less glamourous to be sure, but it's also a great deal more frugal.

I'd also allow for committee meetings, either live or virtually ahead of time. In fact, I'd probably make that mandatory. The bishops already know whether or not they are delegates. With the laity, all that would have to happen are elections far enough in advance for committees to be formed.

By trimming delegates and shifting committee meetings to before, the GC could be reduced in its length as well. Currently it's a two week commitment, which prevents a great number of potential delegates from participating. Two weeks is the standard annual vacation for most Americans. Trim it to four days and all of a sudden working stiffs can run for delegate. To counter balance this egalitarian move, I'd remove all delegate funding from the diocese. Delegates would have to pay their own way. This would further encourage the delegates to be about their business.

Of course, none of the above will ever happen.


Preview: I'm working on a detailed rant/essay about grilling. I've no idea when I'll post it though.

Obscure Reference Time

I had a revelation earlier this morning: The leaders of the General Convention are Elan of Elanor wannabes.

Yes, that is a slam. No, I'm not going to take it back. I believe it also to be the truth.

More Help For GC 2009

When it all gets too much, just hand out this card:

Last Minute Suggestion

The 2009 General Convention of the Episcopal Church will be convening tomorrow in Anaheim California. The theme of the convention will be 'Ubuntu'.

I like Ubuntu. It is the primary operating system on two of my computers. But it is not even last years meme. It's the last generation's. If the Episcopal Church truly wishes to be relevant in this modern society then it should move up to a slightly more modern theme.

My suggestion is from 2007. It's kind of dated now, but I can assure the leadership that whatever grandchildren are still remaining Episcopal will be blown away when Grandma tells them "The cake is a lie".


Inspired by XKCD, of course

What He Said

Dr. Phillip Turner writes eloquently on the great divide between what the progressives who run the Episcopal Church say and what they do.

A Helpful Comparison

BabyBlue has a posted a lovely video of the beginning of the installation of Robert Duncan as Archbishop. I have been busy lately and have not been paying ACNA much attention, so I thought I'd see what was going on at their nuptial convention.

For those who aren't up to speed on Anglican splinter groups, ACNA is the Anglican Church in North America and is the amalgamation of an astonishing number of American Anglican fragments.

There is a PDF of the agenda here. What struck me was how little time was spent on side issues. In the space of four days they wrote a constitution and canons, debated the same, amended the same, installed a primate and still met for worship thirteen times (four eucharists), or slightly more than three times a day.

By way of contrast, the Episcopal Church is meeting for its 2009 General Convention in Anahaeim in July. It will last eleven days. There is a eucharist ten times for corporate worship, or slightly less than once per day.

Now the Episcopal Church is about seven times bigger than ACNA (ASA vs ASA). But it's been around for over two centuries. What's left to discuss that requires eleven packed days of meetings? One hundred dioceses are sending 800 lay delegates and 300 bishops to Anaheim. The dioceses are paying for these persons to come into close proximity to the Magic Kingdom.
If the diocese is very frugal, lodging would cost about $550 per person, airfare (including taxes and fees) comes to around $600 per person (Atlanta to LA and return). Throw in a $20 per day per diem for food and incidentals ($220 per person) and each diocese has to pony up $1370 per delegate. That's a cost of $1,500,000 to the dioceses for having a delegation! Some dioceses (Los Angeles for example) will pay a lot less, some will pay a lot more (Hawaii, Europe, Haiti or Bethlehem).

None of this includes the national church's budgeted amount of $5,883,779 (2009 alone, there were other amounts allocated in 2007 and 2008) to rent the facilities and put on the affair.

The delegates are certainly not going to be slackers. There is no time set aside for them to zip off and see Mickey Mouse. But a quick glance at the agenda and resolutions discussed shows very little substance. There is going to be a great deal of discussion about discussions.

Is anyone else struck by how sclerotic the General Convention appears? Were I in charge, it would have two hundred delegates (one lay, one bishop per diocese) and last three days. All of the committee appointments and meetings would be done in the three years leading up to it, on the delegates dime and therefore likely online.

But then again, were I in charge, the Episcopal Church would only have about twenty dioceses.

Leaving aside theology, which is the big issue, the other major reason why the Episcopal Church has floundered so badly is that it is a Jurassic organization in the Age of Information. It has too many heads and sub heads, too much middle management and too little authority.

One of the reasons why the Presiding Bishop has been able to dictate church discipline is that the organization with the actual authority, the General Convention, is too large and meets too infrequently.

I used to say that the Episcopal Church needed its own Inquisition. Now I'm afraid what it really needs is its own Reformation.

Pre Convention Piskie Propaganda

There's a cameo from the recently famous Katherine Ragsdale!

The video was funded by Integrity, of course, and the Arcus Foundation. Here's the Arcus Foundation mission statement:

The mission of the Arcus Foundation is to achieve social justice that is inclusive of sexual orientation, gender identity and race, and to ensure conservation and respect of the great apes.

The Arcus Foundation works around the globe in two areas—human rights and conservation. Within those areas, we focus our work on LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) rights and preservation of the world’s great apes and their habitat. By focusing our efforts in this way, we can use our resources to achieve an impact in each of two critically important yet under-funded areas.

Gays and apes, so many possible jokes that it made my brain hurt.

Positive versus Negative

Two conventions are about to get underway: The Episcopal Church's (TEC) 2009 General Convention and the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) very first convention. Despite my recent bet, I'm not one to predict the future, but I think it's safe to say that after the two conventions, Anglicanism in America will be even more divergent.

TEC's General Convention is set to consider a plethora of changes, many of which have to do with church discipline and with gay rites. I do not know what resolutions will be adopted, but given the past history, by the end of convention TEC will have moved further to the left.

As for ACNA, they are trying to achieve cohesion. There have been a fair amount of criticism of the new constitution. The authors of it apparently believe that bishops need more authority and the laity less. This is based upon some of their experience in TEC of course.

I think the main problem with ACNA is too many of its members define themselves as former Episcopalians. They need to get over that. That and the acronym sounds like a teenage skin condition.

Several things have done in the Episcopal Church. First and foremost is the inability of the leadership, whether bishops, members of Standing Committees, priests or delegate to the General Convention, to be willing to defend the faith as received. This has resulted in heretical and apostate bishops and priests, the gelding of any evangelism efforts, a break down in discipline and a loss of awareness as to what is really important (it isn't property).

The results of that has been a redefinition of what being an Episcopalian is from a positive thing (what we are and what we believe) to a negative thing (what we are not and what we don't believe). This has brought on a decline in membership. Negativity is not very attractive, and it's no accident that most new members come from other denominations instead of from the unchurched.

The ugly side of Canada has been, for me, their love of defining themselves by who they are not ("We are not the United States"). The ugly side of the Episcopal Church often begins with a similar statement ("We are not fundamentalists", "We are not papists", "We are not Baptists" and so on). Currently, the ugly side of ACNA is "We are not Episcopalians".

I'm hopeful that the ACNA in convention will produce not only a constitution, but a positive sense of what being an Anglican in North America means. I have much less confidence about the General Convention in Anaheim producing a positive meaning for being an Episcopalian.

Timeo Episcopos Et Dona Ferentes

Well the big Anglican gabfest in Jamaica has concluded. The bottom appears to be that there will be no meaningful Covenant for now. So we continue to not know what being an Anglican is. This pretty much guarantees that the Anglican Communion will split, with the Global South going one way and the dying North going another.

The architect of all this muddle is of course our beloved Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. He does not want a split, but if there is to be one he will be on the side of stagnation and stasis.

Rowan Williams is an intelligent man, but he is not a wise one.

Question

Here's a thought experiment:

If everyone who did not believe the creeds left the Episcopal Church, how many would be left? What about the Anglican Church of Canada? Or the Church of England?

And more to the point, would a greater percentage of the laity be left or of the clergy?

Just how many Christians are left in those churches?

And of those who are not Christians, how many know that they are not Christians?

Hellfire and Brimstone

From an Episcopalian, no less. And he's right!

If You Meet the Buddha on the Road

Ordain him a bishop. {H/T StandFirm}

A Phrase Explained

Many years ago the Presiding Bishop of the time, Frank Griswold, exhorted all of us to "live into the tension". I've never really understood what was meant by that phrase. Until now.

In the revisionist worldview, we are clowns walking on a tightrope suspended between a stone column and a random group of onlookers. And all of that activity occurs inside a largish building where our ancestors used to worship God.

Much has been made clear.

The Point of All This Church Stuff

The only reason I respond to the writings of those who run my former church is to try to reach them with the Gospel.

Here is something I posted over at Stand Firm. It's not the best. But it's what I think.

What the above commenters wrote. When I use the word ‘heretic’ I do not use it lightly. Can you honestly say that Archbishop Cranmer would be in accord with your theology? Or Archbishop Laud?

You see, we’ve read your writings and we’ve heard your talks. We read the HoBD mailing list. Greg’s foray into investigative reporting was not news to me (and no I wasn’t one of the ones who relayed Ann’s post to him).

To be explicit, you are a heretic. You are in a position of leadership of a church that purports to be Christian and that used to be so. That is bad. Most of those who comment at StandFirm do so because we are concerned about that sort of thing.

My ideal resolution to this conflict between the heretics in power and the Christians who are opposing them is that you lot will repent of your sins, confess your errors and convert to Christianity. The very reason I, and others, engage in dialog is to reach that resolution.

Some of us had hoped that the impaired or ruptured communion tat the Episcopal Church is in with a large portion of the world’s Anglicans would have been a wake up call for our leadership. Instead of repentance, we saw self-justification, rage and denial. None of those emotions are the fruits of the Spirit.

You and your fellows have set yourselves up as arbiters of who God is, what He is like and how He operates. You have corrupted the word ‘Love’ to serve your ends, and you presume to tell God that He must change to conform to your vision of the world.

On a more personal level, nothing would make me happy than to know that you have stopped telling God what He is, what His limits are and how He should operate in this fallen world. If you could repent of your pride and ask God what He would of you, and seek to serve Him in humility and charity, then any conflict we might have would end.

We are the unworthy servants, and He is our master. He will not allow any other God before Him. And He loves you and me and all of us too much to allow us to continue in our sin.

I will continue to pray for you, Tom Woodward. I fear for your soul as well as the souls of your fellows.

There is a similar conversation over at Dr. Mabuse's Kraalspace. In fairness, here are the links to Tom Woodward's blog and Lisa Fox's.

The Bad News About the Good News

Up until now there have been several dioceses that have consistently grown by any measure (SC, Tennessee etc). The big story of 2007 is that no one grew. Atlanta, where I live, has coasted on a rising tide of immigrants from other parts of the country, some percentage of whom were Episcopalians. This resulted in some pretty statistics for a while.

I think, from a membership standpoint, 2007 will be a watershed year for the Episcopal Church. Absent some bold actions, the negatives for growth (aging membership, defections and lack of children) are going to outnumber the positives (defections from other denominations).

Two of the negatives (lack of children and aging) are going to result in an accelerated rate of decline over the years unless something happens to reverse them.

From a purely economic/business point of view, TEC is in almost exactly the same position as Sears. No new customers, existing customers are leaving (whether by going to another store or dying), huge fixed costs, and the goods are perceived as unattractive by potential customers. Further, much as Sears has backed off of or eliminated long standing policies (the Craftsman guarantee springs to mind), the Episcopal Church has rendered whole areas of belief optional.

The bottom line is this, if we want to buy crappy tools or shoddy clothing, we don't have to go to Sears. Wal-Mart is cheaper. Likewise, if I want false teaching, dubious logic or bad music, I have a tv, with satellite no less. No church membership is required.

{H/T Underground Pewster}

Standard Answer

In the future, reappraisers ought to reply as follows to any criticism anyone might have of any innovation they wish to introduce:

God is clearly doing a new thing in the diocese of Los Angeles. The folks there are simply being church and living into the all inclusiveness of God’s love. We’ll all get a chance to share our story and do some theology. As for same sex marriage, well, that’s complicated, but by embracing the listening process, walking through life’s labyrinth, and living into the reality that there is much pain in the church right now and we have to allow time for healing, we will all be less shellfish.

Lovely Word

My favourite word is 'love'. But one of my top ten faves is 'hope'. Recently, I had an exchange with Dean Munday of Nashotah House on his blog. A concern of many among the conservative Episcopalians has been the complacency with which the leadership of the Episcopal Church regards the decline in membership. Both average Sunday attendance and actual membership have decreased since the mid-sixties. There have been a few years in that period where the trend has leveled or reversed, but overall the trend has been down.

The word from our leadership has been that this is a natural result from our demographics and the trend is shared amongst most mainline Protestant denominations. All of which is true. What has been missing is any sense of urgency as well as any sense that this is serious and worth devoting energy and resources to reversing.

I read the House of Bishops and Deputies Mailing List at least twice a week. One senior clergyman reports on church defections and other demographic catastrophes from time to time. The responses to his posts have been largely vitriolic, condemning him for presuming to mention bad news. I have been and remain somewhat perplexed by these responses.

I am not the most optimistic person on the planet. My wife has repeatedly said that my brother got double the normal dose of optimism and I received double the normal dose of pessimism. She is probably right. I rarely think things will end well. Reality is messy, and the world is full of pain.

However, in the end, all will indeed be well. At the core of the Gospel is that lovely word 'hope'. Our hope is in Jesus, and He has said that we are known to God and loved by Him and that we have a home with Him at the end.

I think Dean Munday hit the nail on the head when he wrote “I would argue that this aspect of the European mentality is characteristic of American liberals as well. And that is hardly surprising, since once you have given up the assumptions of historic Christianity about the Gospel, sin and redemption, the nature and destiny of the human soul, etc., a kind of resignation about one's own decline and death or the destruction of human institutions takes over. “

So what we are seeing is a church that shows that it has abandoned the Gospel by its lack of hope. Is it little surprise that it also shows very little love either? A church without hope is a church that will not feel the need to evangelize. If there is no Good News, then there is no need to share Good News. What is left is a need to make the best of our time here on earth before we totter to our graves and the final oblivion.

This has produced some good results. The Episcopal Church really did well in promoting civil rights in the fifties and sixties. But it also has left us with a church unpinned by any constraints. As well as a church complacent in its own righteousness and purpose, because if there is no hope, then there really isn't any God. All that is left is social action as defined by a relativistic human scale.

As for me, as pessimistic as I am, and I am pessimistic, I cling to the hope we have been given by our Creator and is best exemplified by His Passion and Resurrection. That hope is well worth sharing.

Wishes

Right now I wish I lived in Fort Worth, at least religiously. Instead, I live in Atlanta, where the diocese just passed the following resolutions:

R08-4

Development of Liturgical Rites for Same-Gender Unions

Resolved: This 102nd Annual Council of the Diocese of Atlanta approves the
following resolution to the 76th General Convention of The Episcopal Church,
meeting in Anaheim, California, in 2009; and be it further


Resolved: This council directs the Secretary of Council to transmit the
following resolution to the Secretary of the General Convention:


Resolved: The House of __________ concurring, the 76th General Convention of
The Episcopal Church authorizes the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music
to develop appropriate rites for the celebration and blessing of the sacred
unions of gay and lesbian persons, taking into account the variety of civil
arrangements for such unions available in the regions served by the church;
and be it further


Resolved: that such rite or rites shall be presented at the 77th General
Convention of the Episcopal Church.



EXPLANATION
In light of events following the Lambeth Conference of 2008, it is clear
that our charitable restraint and response to the Windsor Report in the
matter of our declining to develop a rite or rites to allow the celebration
and blessing of sacred unions for people of the same gender has not had the
effect of preserving unity and civility between those who believe such
unions may be good and moral and those who cannot conceive as such a
possibility being within the bounds of Christian faith and the Anglican
Tradition. It is also clear that while a great many Episcopalians remain
undecided about their own beliefs in these matters, they recognize both the
desirability of allowing those who seek to make such commitments in the
midst of their community of faith to do so; and that the reality that the
cost of our charity has been at the expense of one clear minority within our
church; and further that there is no compelling reason that these brothers
and sisters should have to continue to bear the burden of that charity.

The development of such a rite or rites by and for the whole church will
allow a restoration of decency and order from diocese to diocese under the
guidance of each bishop, the ensuring of theological integrity to such rites
and the capacity of the church to "sanction" and declare such committed
relationships among people of the same gender to be both moral and fully
within the bounds of our common life.

Submitted by: The Rev. Geoffrey M. St.J. Hoare, The Rev. Charles M.
Girardeau,
The Rev. Noelle York-Simmons, The Rev. Elizabeth Shows Caffey
All Saints', Atlanta



R08-5

Repeal of General Convention Resolution B033

Resolved, this 102nd Annual Council approves the following resolution to the
76th General Convention meeting in Anaheim, California, in 2009; and be it
further

Resolved, this Council directs the Secretary of Council to transmit the
following resolution to the Secretary of the General Convention:


General Convention Resolution

Resolved, the House of ___________, concurring, the 76th General Convention
of The Episcopal Church recognizes that the usefulness of Resolution B033 as
passed by the 75th General Convention of The Episcopal Church has run its
course; and be it further

Resolved, that the 76th General Convention of The Episcopal Church herewith
repeals Resolution B033 as passed by the 75th General Convention of The
Episcopal Church; and, be it further

Resolved that The Episcopal Church acknowledges with regret the further
oppression visited on the lesbian and gay members of this church by
Resolution B033 and its application; and apologizes for the potentially
negative impact of said resolution on the ability to respond to the
vocational call by the Holy Spirit to the episcopate of any members of this
church; and be it further

Resolved that The Episcopal Church expresses its appreciation to the lesbian
and gay members of this church for their patience during this time of
discernment for the church; and be it further

Resolved that in the call to see the face of our Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ in each other, this church pledges its utmost effort to keep all
parties "at the table" as The Episcopal Church continues to insure the full
participation of all of God's children in the life of this church.





EXPLANATION
Resolution B033 was an attempt by The Episcopal Church to help continue the
discussions prompted by resolutions passed at Lambeth Conferences in 1978,
1988, and 1998 and in response to portions of the Windsor Report and the
requests of the Primates of the Anglican Communion. The resolution did
little to achieve those goals. Yet it did extreme damage to the spiritual
well being of the lesbian and gay members of The Episcopal Church and had
the potential for limiting the response of those members to any call to the
episcopate they might have felt from the Holy Spirit. Resolution B033 needs
to be repealed in order to reassure the lesbian and gay members of this
church of their full membership in this church and help bring about
reconciliation among us all.

Submitted by the Diocese of Atlanta



Submitted by:

Bruce Garner, All Saints', Atlanta; Member, Executive Council of The
Episcopal Church
John Andrews, Grace-Calvary, Clarkesville
RPM Bowden Sr., St. Paul's, Atlanta; Member, Executive Council of The
Episcopal Church
Tim Raasch, St. James' Marietta; Convener, Integrity Atlanta

Because we are, apparently, not out of communion with nearly enough of the Anglican Communion. Upon reflection the absence of a resolution labeling Archbishop Akinola a 'big fat meanie' is startling.

Change and Hope

In the Orthodox Church of America. I truly hope their new Metropolitan can refocus their church on the Gospel and away from the scandals that have plagued it. There certainly seems to be reason enough to be optimistic on that score.

Obligatory Piskie bashing: Metropolitan Jonah was baptized an Episcopalian. If there is one thing the Episcopal Church needs, it's his sort of leadership. His money quote: "Authority is responsibility. Authority is accountability. It's not power."

The crisis in the Episcopal Church has worsened, and continues to worsen, precisely because men like James Paffhausen have left. It will never improve so long as the TEC follows the Peter Principle in lieu of St Peter's principles.

How Many Steps?

Hills of the North has much to say about being an Episcopalian. Hie thee hence!