Executive Council Greets Signs of Growth, Presses Agenda in Stockholder Resolutions
Episcopal News Service. November 21, 1994 [94182_Z]
When the newly constituted Executive Council gathered November 1 for its first meeting since General Convention it was greeted with good news. For the third year in a row, the Episcopal Church has posted a modest net gain in membership, pushing past the 2.5 million mark.
Based on 1993 parochial reports, Treasurer Ellen Cooke reported a net gain of 12,485, increasing baptized membership to 2,504,682 as of last January.
Obviously drawing encouragement from the growth, Presiding Bishop Edmond L. Browning told the council that he begins his final three years in office "with great excitement and in a spirit of hope. Our church is healthy and growing, both in numbers... and in faithfulness. We are in dialogue about issues of importance, and we are committed to keeping the conversation going."
Browning said that he will continue to emphasize the national office's links with provinces and dioceses, especially through the program in which a member of the national staff is assigned to each diocese and province. He also said he and Pamela Chinnis, president of the House of Deputies, would visit a half-dozen dioceses in 1995 to meet with parish and diocesan leaders.
Browning also said that he wants council members and national staff to visit all dioceses in 1996 as they did last year in a "listening process" that helped inform changes in staff and structure. "This is a time for generating ideas," he said. "There are no limits. Let us think boldly and creatively." In areas such as stewardship he said that "we have to ask: what is it we are not doing that we could be doing to help dioceses?" And he urged dioceses to create companionship relations with other dioceses in the Anglican Communion to counteract parochialism.
Browning expressed a determination to continue raising up international issues, as he had done in El Salvador, Haiti, the Philippines and Uganda. The council was given a statement from Browning congratulating Jordan's King Hussein and Israel's Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on their peace agreement. The statement also condemned terrorist violence against Israelis, which threatens the peace process, and Israel's construction of settlements in and around East Jerusalem.
Half of the council's 38 members are new. A total of 13 are people from ethnic minorities, including African-American, Asian-American, American Indian, Japanese/Hawaiian and Hispanic, including a Mexican.
In an effort to continue flexing its muscle through shareholder actions, the council approved 13 resolutions affecting 17 companies in which the Episcopal Church holds stock, seeking to achieve corporate reform on environmental issues, racial justice and community development, as well as influence practices in South Africa, Burma, the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The Rev. Brian Grieves, peace and justice officer, said that the church seeks dialogue, not confrontation, with corporate officials. "Some resolutions may be withdrawn because a company will sit down with us and say, 'What can we do?"' he said. Filing shareholder resolutions "puts the churches inside the company rather than outside, holding demonstrations," he said.
With the fall of apartheid in South Africa, the church has reversed its divestiture policy. It will ask Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Upjohn companies to uphold a code of conduct developed by the South Africa Council of Churches, one that calls for equal opportunity, training and education and protection of workers' rights.
A second resolution asks Motorola to halt sales of goods to Israeli settlers in the West Bank and Gaza, maintaining that the settlements are illegal under international law. It is the first time a church body has addressed the Israeli-Palestinian issue through a shareholder resolution, Grieves said.
The chairs of council's major working committees were also announced. They are Judith Conley of Iowa, program; John Harrison of Pennsylvania, planning and evaluation; Bishop Don Wimberly of Lexington, Kentucky, administration and finance; and Ginger Paul of Louisiana, agenda.
- Commended Edmond and Patti Browning for their peacemaking efforts and work for justice, and encouraged continued commitment to the work of reconciliation;
- Acknowledged companion relationships between the dioceses of Georgia and Belize, a member of the Church of the West Indies, and between the dioceses of East Carolina and Puerto Rico;
- Approved $192,000 in theological education block grants for dioceses in Latin America and the Caribbean.