One Voice-One Vote

I must admit I am getting quite jaded about the way that votes are counted in our nation, or even in our Church. I used to take great pride in the voting process of both our nation and the Episcopal Church. But after the fiascos of the last 2 presidential elections, the Florida Flimflam and the Ohio robbery, I get very unsure of the whole process.

We spend a great deal of money to have an election. There has been one relief in the unrelenting TV campaign ads in the national quadrennial affair: The campaign humor has been the best that I can remember! I have gotten u-tubes that have seen that have had me guffawing! Too bad there is so much at stake.

I will go and vote and exercise what I believe is my citizen’s duty. But I am not sure where the votes are going. I don’t know who is going to count them and whether my vote is going to be counted the way I have voted. I just have to have faith that my vote is going to go to the right person.

The same feeling arises when we vote in Diocesan elections any more. For the past few years, we have been using the single transferable ballot. We no longer have a single vote for a single candidate. We vote for our highest candidate and then second highest and so forth. The purpose is to save time. But democracy takes time. It takes time to know who the candidates are, what is their specific reason for running for office, and why I want to vote for them. The least we can do is count and report the votes for them.

The problem comes when we want to know the will of the Convention. There is no way now with a single transferable ballot that we can get the mind of the Body of Christ. All we get told is who won. We have no knowledge if there was a wide margin; we have no way of knowing if this is a close election or a landslide. And the way that a single transferable ballot gets tallied is anybody’s guess.

Am I accusing anyone of malfeasance? Not at all! I am just saying that we as a people have gotten away from good old fashioned democratic methods of One Voice-One Vote in our diocesan government. We are throwing away a very important charism of our Episcopal Church just as we are throwing away much of the liberty in our nation by choosing to “streamline” our voting process.

Priceless

Thanks to Madpriest.

Episcopal Theology?

You know you are an Episcopalian…

…if you reach a point when you're not sure about anything theologically but you still feel completely at home at the altar rail and somehow know you're meeting God there, even though you can't begin to understand how.

I found this statement at the end of a list of funny statements that identify us as Episcopalians. I could not help the smile that came upon my face when I read this. And I couldn’t help but hear the rhetoric of the likes of + Iker, x+Duncan and those who damn the Episcopal Church that we don’t even believe in God anymore.

I majored in theology when I went to seminary. I had studied theology with the Jesuits at Loyola (NO) and Saint Louis University during my Roman Catholic incarnation, so I thought that theology would be a snap for me as an Episcopal seminarian. But the surety of Aquinas’ scholasticism was never an Episcopal thing except in some rather remote circles (i.e. Nashotah House). I soon found that jots and tittles were not observed in Episcopal theology especially at the Episcopal Divinity School. And for the first time in my faith life, theology and spirituality combined.

The more I became Episcopalian; the more I understood the unity of faith and reason. It no longer became an effort to suspend reason to know faith. This does not mean that my faith became more reasonable. Faith goes beyond reason because reason cannot encompass that which is Divine. It just became more reasonable to suspend it. The God that I knew, the Holy One I experienced, broke down those theological pigeon holes that once were convenient ways of describing God. My life became less involved with trying to describe God, or discuss God, and more involved with living with and serving God.

Today I read the likes of Spong, Borg, Wink, Heyward, Fox and find that it is not necessary to put theology into pigeon holes either. As I dance with the Lutherans I hear some heavy theology thumped by some, but mostly I hear the same kind of testing one’s relationship with God against how one is describing the activity of the Divine. And I believe this is a good thing. We are invited to the altar rail with a sense of wonder and acceptance that moves us beyond the ‘thou shalt nots’ and into a commandment to love.

I also see even theologians testing their theology with their spirituality rather than trying to fit God into “reasonable” arguments. I can no longer articulate salvation in the words of redemption economies. I have a hard time talking about salvation at all, except in the sense of the kind of universality that God wants to be a part of everyone’s lives. I have a hard time thumping a theology of human damnation from the fall because I know the mercy of Christ’s life among us. Yet in that acceptance I can know clearly how much I fall short of God’s desire for me. It is in the light of God’s embrace that I know my sinfulness and the sinfulness of the world which bring me to my knees in humility and remorse.

So I DO have a theology of God, Humanity, and Creation. I do have a notion of how sin affects the individual soul and the world. I believe in a sense of shalom that is offered to all which is how I understand heaven. My faith is quite traditional and orthodox no matter how I am seen by those who might label me otherwise. Can I count how many angels can dance on the head of a pin? I don’t bother. Some things I can leave up to God.

"Sickness unto Death"

I haven’t been posting much lately. Since vacation I have found it hard to write about the Episcopal Church. The various depositions of bishops and the continuing elections to leave the church leave me weary of the fight. I am glad that those leaders and those parishes have left. They have not been Episcopalians for some time. But I the malaise that I feel is about the church that remains.

The description of the September Diocesan Clergy conference was so insipid that it left me no longer angry but just tired. When the diocese cannot even afford a speaker to expand or develop the education of the body of clergy in its midst, it has ceased to be a diocese of any import. Or when the topics deal with navel gazing rather than the care and development of their parishes, there is no reason worthy of attending. The place where the conference is held has no chapel or musical center. The times for sharing and places to do so are cramped and uncomfortable. The atmosphere is angry and defensive.

In comparison, the Upstate Synod ELCA had about 1/3 of their clergy in attendance of all ages. There were ways to allow retired clergy to attend. There was a nationally-known speaker speaking on congregational development. It was held at a retreat center that provided a prayerful setting. Liturgy was centered on the tradition and came from denominational prayer books and hymnals. It allowed the clergy to sing the office reminding them of their seminary days and touching important spiritual centers of their lives. The afternoon of the second day was devoted to relaxation and collegiality. There was a golf outing, winery tours, card playing and good place to gather to share our lives and convivial discussion. It was a place and time of welcome and sharing.

I love the Episcopal Church. I have served in 3 different dioceses and under 7 different bishops. Even in the midst of the schism, I have found my denomination a place of energy and faith. But I have a hard time finding such energy or enthusiasm in my diocese. It is sad. The malaise that seems to be attacking the Clergy Conference also seems to be attacking churches in the area too. Kirkegaard may have been right.

A Letter from the Bishop of Ft. Worth

A Pastoral Request from the Bishop
This message is specifically directed to every priest in charge of a congregation in the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth. However, I am sending it to all clergy, vestry members, and convention delegates on our mailing list so that everyone will know what I am proposing.
As the date approaches for our momentous Diocesan Convention vote in November, many parish clergy have attempted to make certain that their parishioners understand the issues surrounding the proposal that we separate from the General Convention of The Episcopal Church. In several places parish forums have been held, where outside speakers have been brought in to present the opposing sides on the question of realignment. Some of you have preached sermons on this subject, written articles for your parish newsletter, and even in a couple of places brought in General Convention authorities to speak to your people. In addition, several different groups have been formed in the Diocese, including Remain Episcopal, Via Media, and Remain Faithful, which have attempted to educate, organize, and motivate the laity to take sides on the question: “Should we remain with TEC or with the Diocese?” Legal counsel has been engaged, lawsuits are being anticipated, various steering committees have been formed, and outside assistance from the “815” church headquarters in New York is being sought.
An important factor that has often been forgotten in all of the controversy is the need for prayerful discernment that seeks, above all else, to know what God’s will is for us at this particular time in our life together as a diocesan family.
As your bishop and chief pastor, I am inviting and urging that every congregation in this Diocese enter into an intentional 40-day period of prayerful discernment to be concluded the week prior to our Convention on November 14 and 15. This means that our start-up day would have to be either September 28 or 29. Furthermore, I am proposing that we all use the same materials and process that will lead us in this venture. All the information that you will need may be found at this website: www.40daysofdiscernment.org. Please go to that site today or tomorrow and get everything you need in order to begin.
Fr. David Klein has already completed this program at St. John’s Church in Fort Worth, and I am certain that he is willing to commend it to you and to answer any questions you may have about it in advance.
I will not force any of you to comply with this request. At this very tense and troubled time in the life of our Church, I am simply asking each of you to respect and be guided by my pastoral direction and leadership as your bishop by leading your congregation(s) in this discernment program. Ultimately, no one from outside can tell you and your people what you should decide is the best way forward for your congregation. This 40-day program is to help each local congregation, as a body of Christian believers, to enter into a prayerful and reasoned process to help discern a way forward through the crisis that is confronting us.
Please let me know how I can be of assistance as we move forward together as the Holy Spirit leads us.
The Rt. Rev. Jack Leo Iker
Bishop of Fort Worth
September 3, 2008


Commentary
+ Jack Iker has written a letter to the parishes in the Diocese of Ft. Worth asking for a period of 40 days of discernment so that in November the members of the diocese can vote at Diocesan Convention on whether or not to leave the Episcopal Church. This letter is typical of the kind of information that +Iker and even his predecessors have made available to their priests and congregations for years. If it had not been for many who have moved to the sunny south from other areas, most Ft. Worthians would never have known that they were out of pace with the rest of the Church. It was also the heavy work of Via Media and now Remain Episcopal that have given members of the Episcopal Church in the diocese a view of the Church that has not been controlled by the archconservatives. In many ways the Episcopal Diocese of Ft. Worth reflects the strong influence of the Southern Baptists whose conference is based in the city.

But the seemingly benign plea for discernment by +Iker has its teeth. According to this letter the diocese should enter a time of prayerful discernment. But the “but” is there. It should only be done according to the same information which will be provided by the diocesan office. Once again the Diocese of Ft. Worth is trying to control the mind of the diocese which is the most un-Episcopal—un-Anglican thing you can do.

One of the most important charisms of what it means to be an Episcopalian is the freedom of thought. We have always looked askance at the Roman Catholic hierarchy that tends to bend the mind of its members. We have always tried to stand ready to embrace more than one opinion. Again and again we have seen +Iker and the likes try to control how people think which is not only un-Anglican, it just plain doesn’t work. All it does show is how worried they are when people hear both sides. The years of anti-liberal propaganda is beginning to fail as the world begins to recognize that the issues are no longer Liberal vs. Conservative. The issues are whether Christianity is going to be relevant to a coming generation. The fights must stop because at present no one can hear the Gospel for all the bellicosity.

If anything has happened in this present age is that people can access all kinds of information at all times and in all places. As post-modern gurus are saying—no longer can people in power control information or process. What we must do is come to a place where community –that incredible mix of compromise and conversation must be at the center of what it means to be Church. The future of the Church is going to be less a matter of episcopal decrees and more about dialog. It is going to be less control and more about shepherding. Our bishops are going to have to be more in touch with the people of his/her diocese. The role of the bishop will be less the leader and more the pastor—one who can serve and listen rather than one who sets the agenda of a diocese.

Whether the Diocese of Ft. Worth votes to leave or not, there will be Episcopalians in Ft. Worth. Like the Diocese of San Joachin, there may some churches that will go. But a good number will remain faithful and will continue to be part of the Church knowing that the arguments that +Iker and the like propose are old hat and no longer important to the future of the Anglican Communion.

As we saw at Lambeth, the Anglican Communion is not about to divide. Yes, we disagree but it is not in us to split. We may be more willing to fight than switch. But we are still family. We are still unwilling to divorce even though we disagree.

What's it all about? Lambeth

After all the hype of the past almost 3 years, what has the Lambeth Conference accomplished? I have read several reports including the two missals from our bishop and his wife and am still puzzled by what has happened and why we spent inordinate amounts of energy, time and money on this conference. Maybe it was one of those things that ‘you had to be there’ to understand.

I am quite satisfied that it tried to legislate nothing. In that the Archbishop of Canterbury was wise. Bp. Sisk said that there was considerable difference in the whole conference because there was no attempt to bring legislation to the floor. The purpose of the whole conference was to listen.

+Gene Robinson quoted ++Desmond Tute about Lambeth
"We meet," he said. Full stop. That's what we do. We hold a common belief and hope in the Risen Christ, and because we care for one another as brothers and sisters in Christ, we meet. We meet, and let God's Holy Spirit work among us, to allow us to see our common humanity, and to discover the Christ in "the other." While that might not look like much to the rest of the world, it is an amazing "product." It is precisely what we need during this difficult time. We don't need -- perhaps cannot possibly discern -- the answers right now. What we DO need and CAN discern, is that we are all in this together. That God IS working God's purposes out, even if we can't always see it. Even if we are in the midst of conflict and pain.”

And perhaps that is what we should allow our bishops to do—to meet, to talk and to listen rather than try to legislate.

From all the reports that I have gotten from bishops, members of Integrity, from the left and the right, the process of Indaba (small group listening intently to others) groups provided the kind of forum that the Church needed. Using a uniquely African formula for such discussion is not only politic, it may have provided a way around the posturing that is inherent when leaders of any kind get together. It called from the mainly manly group a type of listening that they are not used to doing. And in that, the Holy Spirit CAN do her work.
And evidently did.

I am deeply indebted to such people as Susan Russell, Elizabeth Kaeton, Katie Sherrod and Cynthia Black who went and talked and met with people to let them hear from us here at home. The members of Integrity and those who were stewards from all over the world—all of these spoke by their actions to the needs of LGBT persons. Even more I am indebted to those LGBT persons from Africa and India who put their lives in danger but spoke up about what it means to live in their countries as a gay person. It is these witnesses to the issue that need to be held up as the real heroes of Lambeth.

I am also encouraged by brave stance of + Marc Andrus of California who has said he will not abide by the moratoria.
“Archbishop Rowan in his final presidential address, given just after we received the reflections document noted that, “There will be some who cannot abide by these moratoria, and in this they signal that there are steps to deeper unity they cannot take; or it may be that they conceive of deeper unity in other ways.” I take this to be a profound and generous idea. In not abiding by the moratorium on same-sex blessings I take it as incumbent on me and on us in the Diocese to actively labor to both understand the position of those to whom that moratorium is important, and to convey the reality of our life together to the world. I must redouble my efforts at inhabiting a deeper unity.”
Knowing +Marc, I know that he will do just that; these are not just words of kindness.
I doubt if those bishops who attended Lambeth will come away without being in someway changed. Whenever we journey for a fourtnight with other, whenever there has been solid and important sharing going on one is changed. But with that said, it is absolutely imperative that those of us who call for the end of homophobia in the Church, must also be willing to enter into a deeper unity with those who are not yet ready to hear this from us.
I find that when I have been confronted with those who are willing to share their fears, I am much more willing to take those fears into consideration when I am trying to articulate what it means to be Christ’s own in the world. But we must be mindful that not only must we listen to the fears of a world that cannot yet address the gay issue in their own lands, we must be willing to continue to address the needs of gay folk in our own.
The continued need to abolish the moritoria on same-sex marriage, the consecration of GLBT persons to the episcopate, the support of gay clergy in their parishes and ministries and the welcoming of LGBT persons to our churches still remains our business. It still remains to be the way that we have allowed ourselves as Church to speak of what Christian inclusion means.
For those in African, issues of Christian inclusion mean something different. And they need to address those differences themselves. But we must at the same time remind them that there are LGBT persons in their midsts that are being discriminated against. The same way that our African or Latin American brothers and sisters have to remind us of our consumerist sins, or the use of power in this nation.
The end of the conference and the Archbishop’s (ABC) address is so reminicent of General Convention. While there had been no legislation and the bishops had worked hard to hear each other, it was clear that the ABC wanted to push his desire for a Covenant and to continue the Windsor Process. It was like the end of GC2006—a blatant overthrow of the process that had been worked out in the trenches. It was as if the Indaba groups meant nothing—and perhaps the ABC had not participated in one—the need to be incharge came to the fore.
Where does this leave the Episcopal Church? No place different than before it. What will it mean for General Convention 2009? More of the same, I fear.
But if the Bishops of the Episcopal Church are going to be people of integrity they must be willing to end the moritoria. If they are going to stand for something but still continue to disallow the on-going process of including LGBT person into the life of the Church, then they are nothing but clanging cymbals. But if they are to end the moritoria and take up the real work of inclusivity and unity, then we will be a better Church for it.

The Messiness of the Holy Spirit

I have been watching the various comments by bishops at Lambeth. It is good to hear that the bishops are speaking with candor in their small bible study groups.

As Bishop Wolfe from KS and Bishop Frade of Southeast FL have said today, they don’t expect to iron out the issue of homosexuality in the Church at Lambeth. Thanks be to God! Lambeth couldn’t do that anyway—it is merely a meeting of bishops, not the representation of the whole of the Church. Nor could it speak on something about which men—and it is overwhelmingly a meeting of men—can speak only once every ten years. It is the media that want quick answers from Lambeth, not those of us in the Church.

What I am seeing from the various blogs and news commentaries is a meeting that is less about making decisions and a group of folks who are about listening. And Lord knows, we need to be about that in the Church.

It is clear from the reports from most of the bishops I have followed that some sort of Covenant is not going to be acceptable to TEC. The Anglican Communion has never been a church with a magisterium or a block of doctrine to which one must subscribe. And I would guess that the majority of Anglicans don’t want this either. It is just too easy for such a body of doctrine to be used as a bludgeon and interpreted by a small group to wield power. And while it might give us a better understanding of the faith, it would hamper the continued growth and movement by the Holy Spirit in the Church.

The Holy Spirit makes for a messy Church—Thanks be to God!