Looking Back at Day One

I'm writing this Thursday morning--just back from the gym, and coffee spinning through the hotel room coffee maker.

Wednesday was a full "first day" of Convention. The House of Deputies met at 8 a.m. for an hour to go through the rituals and resolutions required to open a new session, with a formal introduction of officers, adoption of calendars and rules of order, etc.

Bonnie Anderson, President of the House, had some introductory remarks in which she emphasized the international character of the Episcopal Church (so, thus, we are no longer to speak of "the national church")--as there are dioceses and jurisdictions of TEC in Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean, and Pacific Asia.

She also emphasized her appreciation of the political organization of the Episcopal Church--emerging out of the colonial period when Anglicanism took hold in the Americas without the active, immediate oversight of local bishops. Thus a polity that expects episcopal oversight to be conducted collaboratively, with laity and clergy as equal and responsible partners.

My view is that this is perspective is valid, but is also somewhat an oversimplification historically. And it's also not true, perhaps "no longer true," to say that TEC is unique in our collaborative polity. Nonetheless, what I think President Anderson is doing with this emphasis this year--and I've heard the Presiding Bishop speak with similar language--is to set a context for what may emerge over the next few days as significant differences in tone and substance on important and controversial matters betwee the House of Deputies and the House of Bishops.

There may be some thought that if there does turn out to be some misalignment, the tendency both in the Episcopal Church and around the Anglican world will be to focus more on what the Bishops have said and done, and President Anderson wanted, I think, to lay down a marker here that the perspective of the Deputies would insist on equal time . . . .

In any case, after the opening session we went to the opening service, a celebration of the Holy Communion in a vast hall. The Presiding Bishop preached, with a focus on the character of the Church as a Body "in mission," not staying behind closed doors but moving out to engage and serve in the wider world.

A very compelling aspect of her sermon was the story of the founding of the Episcopal Church of the Phillipines, first as a missionary enterprise of the Episcopal Church, then evolving in its own mission to the peoples of the more remote Phillipine Islands . . . and now an autonomous Province of the Anglican Communion. The Presiding Bishop of the Phillipine Church was present and spoke briefly at a presentation at the Offertory.

During the day on Wednesday I attended and participated in two legislative committee meetings. In the morning I attended the Committee on the Church Pension Fund, and testified in support of a resolution encouraging the Pension Fund Trustees to develop benefit strategies to enhance the often very challenging financial situation of the surviving spouses of clergy who die while in active ministry.

In the afternoon I attended the Committee on Ministry, and testified in support of a resolution asking for some procedural enhancements in the Title III canon that describes the format for what is called the "involuntary dissolution" of the settled ministry of a rector.

Both of these topics have been concerns of mine for many years, emerging from my work as a member of the board and as president of the National Network of Episcopal Clergy Associations.

In the later afternoon the House of Deputies met once again, continuing to work on calendar and agenda items, and now beginning as well the actual work of considering resolutions presented by the legislative committees. We gave our consent to the ordination of two bishops who had been elected by their dioceses within the last three months--Bishops-elect John Tarrant, of South Dakota, and Lawrence Prvenzano, of Long Island. Both were escorted to the front of the House by their diocesan deputations and received standing ovations.

We approved resolutions to develop HIV/AIDS prevention resources for youth education programs and a curriculum project for the international Province IX dioceses, we approved the development of online resources for the Theological Education for All program, and we approved a new project to develop distinctively Episcopalian curriculum to be used in Youth and Camping Ministries.

We also adopted a set of general mission priorities, entitled "Five Marks of Mission," which was developed through the Anglican Consultative Council and which has already been adopted around much of the Anglican Communion. The "Five Marks" being (1) to Proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom, (2) to teach, baptise, and nurture new believers, (3) to respond to human need by loving service, (4) to seek to transform unjust structures of society, and (5) to strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth.

The substance of these materials was not controversial, of course, but there was some debate on how the adoption of these thematic priorities should be understood in terms of the development of funding priorities in future years.

At the close of session a small group of us (Scott Quinn, Lou Hays, Steve Stagnitta, Dave Laughlin, and I) headed out to the ballpark, where we saw the Los Angeles Angels get thumped by the Texas Rangers . . . . But a lovely coastal California evening. When we arrived back at the hotel I ended up sitting and chatting for a while with two great old Pittsburgh friends, Nick Knisely (now the Dean of the cathedral in Phoenix) and his wife Karen. Again, as Bishop Johnson mentioned, so much of this General Convention is "family reunion."

Wishing all a good day--

BruceR