Bishops Reflect on Ministry Through Lens of Mission
Episcopal News Service. March 20, 2001 [2001-65]
Ed Stannard, Senior News Editor for Episcopal Life, Jan Nunley
(Episcopal Life/ENS) The House of Bishops' spring meeting was a time to focus on mission and to grow closer to each other through intimate, sometimes challenging conversation.
That was the picture painted by about 15 of the bishops on March 14 at the close of the six-day, retreat-style meeting, held at Kanuga Conference Center in North Carolina. It immediately followed the meeting of the Anglican Communion's primates, held at the same location. Two of the primates, as well as Archbishop of Canterbury George L. Carey, took part in the meeting.
The 140 bishops who attended issued a pastoral letter, to be read in all congregations April 1, in which they said they had "become mindful of how God has been leading us into deeper communion as your bishops and into a renewed awareness of our call to mission."
The bishops said they felt a deeper unity than ever before, but added that "our unity does not mean we are in agreement about all of the difficult and complex questions before us. It means we have claimed our oneness in Christ."
The letter also alluded to the Primates' Meeting and its letter. "The Primates have also called upon us to provide pastoral care for all in our communion, as we grow in Christ's wisdom. We mean to respond faithfully to that call," the pastoral letter said.
Among those addressing the bishops was Ronald Heifetz, author of Leadership Without Easy Answers, who also attended the bishops' spring 2000 meeting. The bishops said in their letter that Heifetz "challenged us to help create an environment in our dioceses open to a variety of convictions so that faithful ministry and creative interaction can be sustained within a richness of diverse perspectives." They also were joined by two new chaplains, the Rev. Michael Battle of Duke University, Durham, N.C., and the Rev. Mark McIntosh of Loyola University, Chicago.
"We reflected on not just mission in an external sense...but what does mission mean in an interior sense," said Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold.
Carey's challenge
During a question-and-answer session with the bishops, Carey was asked about the primates' intentions in their pastoral letter, which spoke of providing pastoral care to those dealing with changes in the church. Ironically, "it is the conservative dioceses that are in our base that's being eroded" by breakaway clergy and congregations joining the newly-formed Anglican Mission in America (AMiA), not liberal dioceses, said Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh.
Carey quoted theologian Nicholas Sagovsky: "Implicit in the notion of politics is the recognition of conflict as integral in the life of community."
"It's not the presence of conflict that's unhealthy for communal life, but the premature suppression of conflict in the interest of an inauthentic unity," he commented. "The church is not immune from this. On the contrary, where Christians have a proper depth of conviction, it is inevitable that those convictions will clash."
"This week in the Primates' Meeting we faced up to that conflict and the dilemma of our brothers and sisters in other parts of the communion," Carey went on. Referring to the particular situation concerning changing sexual mores in the United States, he said, "From the viewpoint of a number of the Primates, it does look as if ECUSA is out of step with the rest of the Communion on sexual ethics, and this point was caught, in the phrase, as I remember it put, 'the new sexual ethics' of the United States.
"Part of the conflict and the pain we have to bear is to bring that out into the open. To face it, not run away from it, not recoil from the pain of leadership--and the pain of leadership means you can't please everybody," Carey told the bishops. "What the primates' letter is actually saying is--it is not saying the debate is over. What it is saying, actually, is 'the debate is beginning, but in a new form'."
It was clear from what Carey said that he has not altered his position on the AMiA, whose bishops, Charles Murphy and John Rodgers, were consecrated by primates from Rwanda and Southeast Asia. "I am opposed to AMiA, but find room for AAC [American Anglican Council], because at least AAC is within the Body," he said.
"AMiA is schismatic, and that is why I cannot recognize the orders of those bishops, because it has taken the conflict out," explained Carey. "It is actually saying that there is no hope, and we, surely, approaching Easter-we are people, most of all, who ought to believe in the possibility of new starts, fresh starts."
Impressions of Carey
In an interview after the meeting, Griswold said that Carey, who was present for the first two days, "challenged us as a church to be mindful that what we do has ramifications in other places." "And what others do has an effect on us" as well, added Bishop Wendell Gibbs of the Diocese of Michigan.
"I heard a strong challenge to remain in communion, not to run away," said Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, the newest member of the House of Bishops, who was consecrated bishop of the Diocese of Nevada on February 24.
Both primates invited by Griswold to attend the meeting said they came away with a positive impression of the Episcopal Church, in contrast to the impression they'd had from the Internet. Archbishop James Simon Ayong of the Church of Papua New Guinea said his participation "gives me a clear picture of the unity that exists" in the Episcopal Church. Before he arrived, Ayong said, "My picture of ECUSA, the Anglican church in the U.S., is of a group that is packing up and leaving the rest of the family." Now, he said, he could see that "the Episcopal Church in the U.S. is just the same as any Anglican church across the communion." As for ECUSA's differences with other provinces on human sexuality issues, he said, they are "a matter of pastoral care within ECUSA."
As he spoke to the gathered American bishops, Archbishop Bernard Amos Malango of the Church of Central Africa said, he called on them to stand and greet one another with the words, "I love you, because in your face I see Jesus."
Malango said he was "enriched spiritually" by the House of Bishops meeting and impressed that the American bishops "don't just talk business." In fact, he said he would like to bring the retreat-style model to his own bishops, along with the idea of including spouses at meetings. The Episcopal bishops' spouses held their own meeting at Camp Allen in Texas.
"Do it through mission"
Bishop James Kelsey of the Diocese of Northern Michigan linked the focus on mission to the General Convention resolution to double church membership by 2020. "I think it was helpful to reflect on that...an affirmation that growth for growth's sake is not where it's at." Instead, he said, we "do it through mission."
The bishops divided into six groups, focusing on different areas of mission: mission to Episcopalians, to estranged Episcopalians, to lapsed Christians, to those of other faiths, to those of no faith, and mission in the context of social justice. One of the case studies forced the bishops to confront the question: "What is the truth we're hiding from in the battles we choose to fight?"
Bishop Geralyn Wolf of the Diocese of Rhode Island was in the group discussing those who feel estranged from the church. "We came to no conclusions," she said, "but we honored the fact that there are people who are there, some with us, some not, but they're part of us."
Bishop Suffragan Robert Hibbs of the Diocese of West Texas talked about embracing "the other in the other's own reality. It's my sense that every side of our divisions is well served to make that transitus." He said he hoped each side can "hang on to each other long enough to do it."
Bishop Duncan Gray III of the Diocese of Mississippi said the discussions helped him feel support in the "serious listening" he is undertaking with disaffected members of his diocese.
Though several bishops said they created no strategic plans during the retreat, Bishop David Bane of the Diocese of Southern Virginia said the bishops did not avoid the serious issues. "This house is not dodging anything, but we're taking them on in a more theological way," he said.
Lifted spirits
The bishops also had their light-hearted moments. Bishop Suffragan Barbara Harris of the Diocese of Massachusetts led them in song from the piano one evening, including reminiscences about her family. "It came so out of her soul to teach us how to sing," said Wolf. "We were seeing a legend here."
Wolf and Bishop Suffragan Catherine Roskam of the Diocese of New York also said the bishops have formed their own choir and plan to cut a CD at their fall meeting. Sales of the disk will benefit Episcopal Relief and Development.