Winds of Change in the Church Will Buffet Indianapolis General Convention
Episcopal News Service. June 15, 1994 [94118]
It has been called many things -- a family reunion that brings together almost 10,000 people, the largest bicameral legislative body in the world, even a hopeless debating society. Since its founding in 1789, the triennial General Convention has been the highest authority on the mission of the Episcopal Church. It not only sets the policies and the priorities for the church, it decides what money will be spent -- and how.
As it prepares for the meeting in Indianapolis, August 24-September 2, the General Convention will be buffeted by winds of change sweeping the church -- and American society. The 1991 meeting in Phoenix was caught in hurricane of resolutions, about 600 on every conceivable topic. The result was a legislative gridlock. And many deputies and bishops went to Phoenix under protest over the lack of a paid holiday in Arizona to honor the memory of slain civil rights leader, Martin Luther King, Jr.
Expectations that the convention would resolve sexuality issues were dashed and, in a compromise that acknowledged the church's sharp divisions, a resolution called for a study of sexuality at the diocesan level and for a pastoral teaching from the bishops.
In a carefully designed study that reached deep into attitudes on the local level, as many as 30,000 church members in 75 dioceses participated and the results revealed some surprisingly open attitudes on sexuality issues.
The drafting committee of the House of Bishops preparing the pastoral teaching has taken the results of the survey into account as it moves through several drafts in a closely guarded process. Bishop Richard Grein of New York, who chairs the committee, said that a very broad range of opinion on sexuality issues is represented on the committee -- which for the first time includes General Convention deputies. He remains optimistic that most bishops will accept the final draft. The pastoral will be voted on during the first session of the bishops in Indianapolis and then presented to a joint session of both houses.
Speculation is swirling around what the pastoral will say about blessing same-sex unions -- several resolutions on the subject will be introduced in Indianapolis -- and the ordination of sexually active gays and lesbians. At this point, the bishops are determined to maintain confidentiality until the General Convention, in the face of several leaks to the press on early drafts.
Church leaders are determined to avoid a legislative logjam this time. At a crucial meeting of the planning and arrangements committee last January, House of Deputies President Pamela Chinnis said, "We must get away from the notion that General Convention must have an opinion on everything." She wrote to all deputies and alternates "urging them to be restrained in the number of resolutions they file." And she urged chairs of legislative committees to be "more aggressive about coming up with one resolution" that incorporates elements from similar resolutions.
Among the attempts to streamline the legislative process, the convention will make wider use of the consent calendar of resolutions that don't require debate. And the orientation for deputies will be "more intensive," according to the Rev. Canon Don Nickerson, executive for General Convention and secretary of the House of Deputies. He said that Judge George Shields of Spokane will coordinate the flow of legislation.
Participants at a May meeting of the 50 bishops and deputies who chair the legislative committees emerged optimistic that they had found a way through the thicket. "We found among ourselves a strong commitment to trust and community-building, rooted in the unity of our faith in Christ," they said in a signed statement.
Main item on the General Convention agenda will be proposals for sweeping changes in structure adopted by the Executive Council, based on a four-year listening process throughout the church. Faced with diminishing financial support, and pressure from the dioceses for more direct support of local ministries, the council is calling for a complete restructure that cuts staff for the second time since 1991 and reorganizes the program around clusters designed to more directly serve the local church. It also proposes to change the funding of the national church from a formula based on parish income to one that asks for a set percentage of diocesan income. "Money has replaced sex at the top of the church's agenda," asserted Bishop Don Wimberly of Lexington, the council's liaison with the powerful program, budget and finance committee that will present the new budget to the General Convention.
The dramatic changes must be endorsed by the General Convention and Executive Council members acknowledge that changing deep-set patterns in the church will not be easy. Diane Porter, senior executive for program, said that "change is always difficult" and that there are some "rough times ahead." Yet she argued that the restructure "is the only way we can break things open and convince people that they must be in better partnership with each other."
Presiding Bishop Edmond Browning told the April Executive Council meeting in Omaha that "a continuous conversation with the dioceses will make a big difference in how our mission is carried out." Clearly worried about the reaction of the General Convention to the proposed changes, the Rev. Canon Roswell Moore of California asked, "How do we help the convention share the transformation so that they can own it and go back home to share it?" And Judy Conley of Iowa observed that the church was "embarking on uncharted waters. We don't know if the dioceses will respond as we hope by picking up ministries at the local level." She asked, "If we run into uncharted waters, how do we hold the mission together?"
The changes are not dramatic enough for some and resolutions will propose cutting the size of the House of Deputies in half, changing the frequency of General Convention and the way resolutions are submitted, and reexamining the role of the presiding bishop. Other resolutions actually suggest that it is time to move toward a unicameral General Convention -- and move the national offices of the church out of New York City.
After their visitations to dioceses of the church that helped shape their proposals, Executive Council members returned with a much clearer understanding of the urgency to change. Some, like Peg Anderson of Arizona, said that the church was caught in a "general lack of confidence in national bodies."
"Our national institutions are becoming obsolete -- and the mainline denominations are no exception," observed Barry Menuez, the church's senior executive for planning. "It's not a matter of bad guys or good guys, it's just that the existing model does not connect to the parishes and dioceses any more."
In a blistering critique of the whole listening process, and the proposed changes, Bishop John Spong of Newark said in his diocesan newspaper that the church went through a similar process in 1970. He refused to participate in the diocesan visits this time because "walking down this road is to surrender any semblance of vision or leadership. It is an abdication to fear." The result, according to Spong, is "another visionless platform on which another future presiding bishop will be elected to unify the church in its irrelevance....Why do we not see that this refusal of the Body of Christ to confront issues, to stand for an unpopular truth at the risk of alienating a segment of its prejudiced population, is not a church that inspires anyone?"
As bishops and deputies consider changes for the next triennium some attention will be spent on the future beyond 1997. During the convention, provinces will caucus and choose members of the committee that will nominate a new presiding bishop who will be chosen at the 1997 General Convention in Philadelphia.
The continuing controversy over the role of ordained women in the life of the church may be resolved at this General Convention. The Episcopal Women's Caucus is building a case against the so-called "conscience clause" adopted by the House of Bishops in 1977 to make a place in the church for those who oppose women in the priesthood or episcopate. Traditionalists will introduce a resolution which, if approved, would make the acceptance of ordained women a requirement of canon law, in effect pushing the General Convention to decide once and for all the limits of dissent and if traditionalists are still welcome.
Traditionalists who oppose women in the priesthood are angry because they contend that they encounter persistent persecution -- and they offer as one example the opposition to the election of traditionalist bishops in the Dioceses of Ft. Worth and also Quincy because of their stand on the ordination issue.
By coincidence, one of the major worship services at Indianapolis will honor women's ministries in the church, 20 years after the first "irregular" ordinations of women priests.
Though the Indianapolis General Convention will not face the controversy that emerged in Phoenix over the King holiday, the recent release of a pastoral letter on "The Sin of Racism" by the House of Bishops will keep the issue alive.
"The essence of racism is prejudice coupled with power," contends the letter, read in parishes throughout the church in May. "It is rooted in the sin of pride and exclusivity" and it "perpetuates a basic untruth which claims the superiority of one group of people over others because of the color of their skin, their cultural history, their tribal affiliation or their ethnic identity." That kind of lie "distorts the biblical understanding of God's action in creation, wherein all human beings are made in the image of God" and it "blasphemes the ministry of Christ who died for all people."
Since many of the programs that dealt directly with ministry to minorities are caught in budget cuts and restructure, the convention will face some angry constituencies. The cuts will "throw us back 20 years -- all the progress that has been made will go down the drain," said Ginny Doctor, who chairs the Episcopal Council on Indian Ministries.
Porter argued that the cuts will not affect the church's ministries, that the ethnic desks and their budgets will be preserved. Under the restructure design, those ministries will no longer have separate commissions but will be gathered under the umbrella of a single justice committee.
"Whether or not racism will be able to compete with sex and money at the General Convention is a difficult one to call," said the Hon. Byron Rushing, a state representative and lay deputy from Massachusetts. He pointed to the decision in Phoenix to launch a nine-year program "to force the church to deal with racism" as a sign of the church's long-term commitment.
Hopes are running high that the church has found a way to deal with its differences without ignoring controversies or sacrificing integrity. The General Convention in Indianapolis will test the growing sense of community hammered out by the House of Bishops in five meetings since Phoenix. And it will test the ability of those who manage the legislative process to give bishops and deputies a forum to discuss issues without polarizing.
As a clear sign of the move away from a confrontative, divisive meeting, deputies and bishops will hear major speakers on topics of special concern: Marian Wright Edelman of the Children's Defense Fund, author Henri Nouwen on community, and possibly Vice President Albert Gore on the environment.
The Indianapolis General Convention faces major decisions on the future of the Episcopal Church and, if it picks its way through the mine fields with grace and determination, it could set a whole new style for dealing with issues in the future.