NEWARK: Convention reaffirms full-inclusion stance, hears call to renewed urban ministry
Episcopal News Service. January 28, 2008 [012808-05]
Mary Frances Schjonberg and Sharon Sheridan
Episcopal Diocese of Newark Bishop Mark Beckwith told the diocese's 134th annual convention January 25 that he will not call for the closing of any more urban congregations.
"We have had enough church consolidation in our cities," Beckwith said January 25 during the first half of his convention address. Beckwith, who celebrated his one-year anniversary as diocesan bishop January 27, told the delegates that cities are where human suffering is most apparent.
"Instead of dismantling the gates of hope, we need to reinforce, if not redefine, the gates we have now, and consider building more," he said.
The next day, as Beckwith completed his address, he described a pilot study to be conducted with at least 13 congregations and an outside consultant to consider if the diocese is "maximizing" the use of land and buildings. Beckwith also included calls for the diocese's members to be better stewards of the diocese's resources and to be better educated about how to develop financial resources.
The convention learned that Beckwith will not bring any more people into the ordination process for a year while the Commission on Ministry works to develop a more comprehensive and more inclusive discernment model.
"We need to look at all orders of ministry together," he said, specifically including opportunities for lay people to discern their call to ministry.
The 17 people currently in the diocese's ordination process will continue to progress towards ordination, Beckwith said.
The convention also passed a resolution affirming its previous dissent to 75th General Convention Resolution B033 and "strongly encourages our Bishop and Standing Committee to consent to the consecration of all qualified candidates duly elected to the episcopate."
The convention passed a separate resolution asking the 76th General Convention to essentially repudiate B033 by affirming that "that Standing Committees and bishops with jurisdiction cannot be bound by any extra-canonical restraints when considering consents to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate." Delegates passed a related resolution asking the next General Convention to affirm "there are no restrictions on a diocesan bishop's authorization of the liturgical blessing of committed relationships between same-sex partners."
The delegates heard from the co-chairs of a civil unions task force appointed by Beckwith to consider the diocese's stance to a nearly year-old State of New Jersey law allowing same-gender couples to enter into legally recognized unions. They reported that the task force has proposed a rite suggested for use in the diocese.
Co-chair Philip Wilson, rector of the Church of the Redeemer in Morristown, New Jersey, told the convention that the task force recognized that its work and the availability of civil unions in general "falls short" of the diocese's hope of same-gender couples to be able to be married in the state and in the church.
Versions of the proposed rite and the task force's complete report are scheduled to be posted on the diocese's website this week.
Among the other resolutions passed by the convention were ones to:
- Recommend that all lay employees of the diocese, congregations or diocese-related organizations working at least 20 hours a week be covered by state unemployment insurance and be able to enroll in the Group Term Life Insurance Program administered by the Church Life Insurance Corp. by the next convention;
- Recommend that the 76th General Convention authorize the consideration of adding Pauli Murray (the first African American women to be ordained a priest in the Episcopal Church) and John Jay (the first Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court and advocate for the governance role of the laity in the Episcopal Church's constitution) to calendar of the church's commemorations;
- Urge the New Jersey legislature to establish the hanging of a noose to be an indictable felony offence equivalent to the unlawful display of a swastika or Ku Klux Klan symbol so that there would be a mandatory sentence upon conviction;
- Condemn "the ongoing workplace raids conducted in enforcement of U.S. immigration policy that results in detention and deportation of undocumented immigrants, which cause wrenching separations of families and often leave children parentless," encourage members of the diocese to learn more about the issue and encourage efforts to legally assist those seeking protection and assistance;
- Commit to having interpreters for the deaf available at all diocesan events; and
- Urge diocesan "committees and commissions be sensitive to ways in which inclusive language can be incorporated in all diocesan communications and materials..."
Texts of the all the resolutions as amended and Beckwith's complete address have not yet been posted on the diocese's website.