Unity of Mission Conference Draws 143 Participants to Chicago
Diocesan Press Service. June 5, 1968 [66-19]
NEW YORK, N. Y., May 13 -- The General Convention Special Program dominated the agenda at an Episcopal Church "Unity of Mission" conference held in Chicago May 9 to 11 at the Flying Carpet Inn.
Sponsored by the Mutual Responsibility Commission, the conference brought together 143 delegates from 75 Dioceses and Missionary Districts to review the "principal expressions of mission in the Church today, " and included Diocesan MRI representatives as well as Diocesan ecumenical officers. Forty were lay people and 11 were Bishops.
Although other areas of the Church's work were discussed, including overseas missions and the ecumenical movement, there was no question about the conference's preoccupation with the crisis in American life.
Leon E. Modeste, Special Program director, received a standing ovation following his presentation on Friday morning.
"The problem of the poor," he said, "is that programs of assistance have been given to them, whereas they have their own ideas of what they would like done but lack the resources."
He said a main emphasis of the General Convention Special Program in spending nine million dollars over a three-year period would be "self determination," allowing poverty programs to be controlled by the poor, "to give power to the powerless. "
Other objectives, he said, are:
1. To persuade individual members of the Church to participate in the Special Program by becoming personally involved.
2. To engage the corporate Church in poverty programs, including investment of Church funds in ghetto banks to aid in the economic development of the ghettoes.
3. To combat racist practices that exist in the Church. He cited the existence of a "white" Episcopal Church and a "black" Episcopal Church and asked:
"How can the Church point a finger at the secular world when it is not much different?"
Modeste described procedures used by the Church to appraise the value of proposed programs seeking grants through the use of field personnel and to consult with Bishops in whose areas the proposed programs are to be conducted. He indicated that in some instances projects would be funded even when Diocesan approval was withheld.
He said the Screening and Review Committee of the Special Program would soon ask Executive Council for approval of a half-million dollars in grants to various community organizations throughout the country.
Modeste received another standing ovation following a question-and-answer period, but the tribute was also in part directed toward the Rev. Charles J. Dobbins, of Bellaire, Tex., who in a moving comment to the conference expressed the dilemma of many in the Church who seek to support the Special Program in their parishes. He admitted that he didn't know much about it, that he wanted to know more, that he was in favor of the program. He summed up his feeling by saying:
"I want to march, but I'm only learning to crawl. I have to crawl before I can march. But I don't want any of those bastards shooting at me while I'm on my knees. "
He did not say to whom he referred.
Another speaker at the opening session on Thursday also concentrated his attention on the urban question. He was the Rev. Jay C. M. Allen, rector of St. Mark's-in-the Bouwerie, New York City.
Allen gave what might be described as the keynote address of the conference, describing the work of his own parish involving persons of many races and cultures, including the "yippie" community of the Lower East Side.
"We are called," he said, "to be persons in our time and place."
He emphasized the nature of "personhood" and likened it to the role of the "parson" in a parish, who in an older sense of the word was the "person" of the community to whom others looked for example, help and guidance.
He spoke of the race crisis: "The crisis between white and black is an 'identity' crisis. Can we allow every man to be himself?"
He cited Viet Nam: "This is a 'power' crisis, a crisis of violence. We haven't worked it out but our young people are asking for another kind of peace. "
He talked of the revolt on the campuses: "Young people are saying that we don't want somebody else's identity. They want their own. It is beautifully exciting and disturbing."
He quoted Bonhoeffer: "To love is to let men be, to leave them alone," and added that it also means "to cause to happen the situations where men can be."
"Somewhere in these situations, " he said, "the Holy Spirit is moving. Let men be. Let things happen. The faith is belief in a Lord who lets men be. The Church today does not know who it is, in a nation that doesn't know what it is, in a world that doesn't know what it is."
The Rt. Rev. Francisco Reus-Froylan, Bishop of Puerto Rico, chairman of the Mutual Responsibility Commission, in opening the conference spoke of the uncertain times in which we live.
"The whole world is being shaken, " he declared. "The American way of life is being threatened and ridiculed. One of our goals is to prepare to evaluate the whole program of the Church in the light of today's problems. This conference could be an historic one. All of us are involved in a very uncomfortable and disturbing ministry. "
An evening session on Thursday brought together a panel of three substituting for the Presiding Bishop who was not able to be present because of an automobile accident in which a son had been injured, not critically. It was composed of Oscar C. Carr, Jr., Mississippi planter; the Rev. David Thornberry, of Shaker Heights, Ohio, and the Rt. Rev. Ned Cole, Jr., coadjutor of Central New York, and chaired by Walker Taylor, Jr., conference director.
Carr deplored the fact that the Church, in spite of new and demanding problems, was still asking the "same old questions." "What is the Church? How do we get involved? Dwindling support. Job security for the clergy. "
"Hell," he said, "is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of moral crisis. "
Bishop Cole declared at one point:
"The institutional Church may not survive, but I don't care. I want to be on the side of Him who wins, and I believe that this will be the Lord. I believe the Holy Spirit is speaking to us and moving through us. Our job is to be as fluid and responsive as we can. Our Lord wasn't concerned about budgets. We must respond quickly. Black people may not care, but we can at least try. We are here to discover our mission and the way we are to do it. I have confidence this is the Lord's world, and I'm sure a remnant will survive. We may be a remnant very soon."
One of the principal concerns of the conference, a concern which cropped up in almost all discussions, was the question of law and order, to which Bishop Cole sought to respond.
He made a distinction between "permissiveness" and "freedom":
"Christ, " he said, "tried to get beneath the law. Blacks feel that they have not been helped by the law. As in the example of a child, one can be too permissive, too strict. I'm not in favor of burning, but this is the only way they can call attention to their lot. If I were in the position of a black person I think I could understand. This is not being permissive."
Another main concern was the overseas program of the Church which the Rt. Rev. Stephen F. Bayne, Jr., Deputy for Program, conceded had been affected by the new priorities. He pointed out that no mission field is receiving any less money now than in the previous triennium, although a few missionaries have been brought home and a few projects curtailed.
The Rt. Rev. Melchor Saucedo, suffragan Bishop of Mexico, also spoke on the overseas program, describing the mission of the Church in the Caribbean as being a parallel to the mission of the Church in the United States. He said some confusion had been created in the MRI program because of emphasis on companion Dioceses and said he felt that this was a limited view of MRI.
He recognized, he said, that there might be less funds for overseas mission in the future but this in the long run could turn out to be a "good thing. "
"We realize all of a sudden, " Bishop Saucedo said, "that we must become one in mission. We are discovering this in agony, the agony of the Cross. Our greatest prayer is that you will find time and opportunity to suffer. We have had some of that. I know that MRI has been confused with a lot of things and in some cases it has been simply a sharing of good things in a material sense. But MRI is coming together in prayer and to share the agony and to share in the gift of the Holy Spirit. This is unity in mission. MRI may be obsolete, but I know that it is either hope or agony. "
Peter Day, Ecumenical Officer of the Episcopal Church, described progress being made in ecumenical consultations and said that "we cannot think in anything but ecumenical terms when you are talking about the needs of people. "
"I see it in the suburbs, I saw it at Selma, a new Christian unity, a human unity which is holy. Ecumenism does not have to be promoted, it's going on, and it is much broader than COCU. "
"We are living in the midst of tremendous issues which we all are trying to face on a Christian basis. The Jesus 'thing' is that He calls us into being in the sense that we could not fully be without Him. Unity has to do with the glory of God, which He gave to his disciples, which the disciples are supposed to manifest to the world. It is the unity between Fath Son and Holy Spirit. It also has to be a unity in everything that God is saying to the world."
Day cited the fact that the Episcopal Church is not in contact with Negro churches, although he said "the Gospel is being preached in the ghetto, it is not by us. God will always need his guerilla troops."
An observer at the conference, the Rev. John F. Hotchkin, a priest of the Roman Catholic Church, praised the Episcopal Church for progress in the ecumenical movement.
"The Episcopalians have found answers, but the question is whether we are ready to accept them. A painful question concerns Eucharistic 'sharing'. This is something toward which we must move. In the Eucharist we realize our 'oneness'. "
The question of "orders," he said, must do justice to a broader and more historic view of the ministry which recognizes differences in ministry.
The Rt. Rev. Edward R. Welles, Bishop of West Missouri, described attempts to involve the Pentecostal Church and said that it would have representatives attending the forth- coming Lambeth Conference.
An unscheduled speaker on the program was the Very Rev. John B. Coburn, president of the House of Deputies, who is also dean of Episcopal Theological School, Cambridge, Mass. Dean Coburn said that the students at ETS would be "something left of this group, but they would be thrilled."
In his own reaction, he declared:
"I don't believe we're serious; we're more concerned about maintaining structures and the need to succeed. We need to be unafraid to fail with large sums of money. Money cannot begin to touch the problem. The money the Episcopal Church is putting into American life will make little difference."
He emphasized that the important contribution the Church can make is in terms of personal involvement, as "agents of reconciliation. "
"We need to identify with those who are dispossessed, " he said. "It is not enough to hold the fort."
The summation at the close of the conference was given by the Rev. D. Raby Edwards, of Goldsboro, N. C., who gave his own personal reactions as a parish priest.
"Things are going on in the Church at all levels," he said. "We are anxious, frustrated, guilty and concerned, but as long as my Church is concerned I can stay in the Church and work in this Church. "