Q&A #1: from New Jersey, by phone (at 18.35ff. on the telecast): “I keep hearing about a deadline of September 30, that it’s a line in the sand. I’m not sure what happens if no action is taken by September 30th.”

KJS: “A decision not to decide is also a decision”¦. What is likely to happen is that we would be excluded in some way from the councils of the Anglican Communion. My guess is that the Archbishop of Canterbury will respect the will of the majority of the primates expressed in this communiqué, and impose some sanctions in that regard.”

Nunley: “And what does that mean for the church?”

KJS: “What it means for the church is we lose our voice at the table; we might lose our voice in that conversation. It could mean that we lose our ability to influence, our ability to share experience, our ability to challenge people to consider other options, in our conversations with other leaders around the Anglican Communion.”

#2: from France, by email (19:47ff.): “A hypothetical question that no one wants to answer, but: Could the Episcopal Church go it alone?”KJS: “I don’t think this church is ever alone. We have many, many partners around the world, partners in mission, partners in theological discussions. The body of Christ is never meant to be divided up into pieces; and I think that’s the underlying struggle in this”¦.”

#16: from Cedar Falls, Iowa, by phone (37:38): “Good morning. I’m here with my partner”¦. And, Bp Schori, you’ve stated that the communiqué is a gracious offering to us to have some space to work. But in reading it, it feels like, to us, that the answers are already specified for us that we must meet. The primates have not accepted what we’ve done in Convention; the sanctions are already specified: for if we do not do A, B, and C, this is what’s going to happen. So, in reading it, we don’t feel like there’s much space or much graciousness; it feels very harsh. Thank-you.”

KJS (38:27): “I understand that and I share some of that sentiment; Americans don’t like anybody to tell them what to do; that’s part of our DNA. At the same time, to live together in Christian community means that each member takes seriously the needs and concerns of the other members. And it is in that sense that, I think, what we’re being asked may have some gracious elements in it. It is a response that is asked for a season, until the Covenant process is completed. And if this church decides that it wants to continue to be a partner at the conversation table in the process of creating that Covenant, we have some expectations set before us.”

Read it all.

Q: What is your reaction to the consecration of some Americans as bishops of churches in Africa?

A: Well, the consecration of those bishops would be more helpful if they were going to work in those countries. It’s exceedingly unhelpful to have them consecrated to work here in the United States.

Q: Why is it unhelpful?

A: Because it generates confusion among the faithful, people who do not understand that the Episcopal Church consecrates its own bishops. We elect our own bishops, we do not appoint them, and they are elected and consecrated for work in a particular diocese by the members of that diocese.

Q: Is reconciliation possible?

A: Reconciliation is always possible. Christians live in that eternal hope of complete reconciliation. Signs of reconciliation within this church are, I think, abundant. When people really do sit down and have honest conversation with each other in a way that does not immediately leap to judgment, we begin to make some progress in understanding each other’s beliefs and circumstances.

Read it all.

Watch and listen to it all.

Two comments from yours truly. First, there is an error. The Presiding Bishop says that the Standing Committee of the Anglican Consultative Council and the Archbishop of Canterbury were invited but also invited (and omitted by her) is that the Primates Standing Committee was asked to come as well. Second, she really only mentions one instrument of Communion and noticeably not the other four (she mentions the Archbishop but not in that role). It is highly significant that the North American provinces keep exaggerating the importance of the Anglican Consultative Council, since they had and still have an undue influence in its functioning relative to other provinces in the Communion–KSH.

A year after her controversial election as presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States, Katharine Jefferts Schori is still hopeful tensions within the denomination and the worldwide Anglican Communion can be resolved.

“I think as a Christian you have to live in hope of reconciliation always,” Jefferts Schori said during a brief stop in Corvallis at the beginning of a weeklong vacation.

“If we can get people to get out of a face-saving mode and refocus on the mission of the church, I think we can learn to live together and stay one body.”

Read it all.

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori is on an official visit to the Province of Brazil this week. ENS has its first report of her trip online. Here’s an excerpt:

Primate (or “Bispo Primaz” in Portuguese) since 2006, Andrade also pointed to the shared mission priorities engrained in the ties between the two churches, including pastoral and environmental care consonant with inter-Anglican commitments to achieving the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

One emphases is environmental advocacy informed by Amazon-region experts vigilant in the protection of Brazil’s unique natural resources: 12 percent of the planet’s fresh water and 20 percent of the world’s animal species are found in this vast nation of more than 8.5 million square miles and 170 million people — South America’s largest country with 26 states and one federal district — now working systematically to fight deforestation and climate change.

Environmental minister outlines progress
Welcoming the delegation on July 6 to government offices in Brasilia, national environmental minister Marina Silva told the group of the “holistic, integrated” work of protecting the nation’s unique biodiversity locally, regionally and globally amid such factors as climate change and economic exploitation.

Silva’s perspective, shaped by her own upbringing in the Amazon, takes an egalitarian, comprehensive, multi-agency approach to environmental protection seeking “self-maintaining development,” she said.

Because Brazil is “a developing country, we cannot talk about the environment unless we talk about the social issues facing the nation, including the distribution of wealth and the reality of 53 million people living below the poverty line,” Silva said, speaking through interpreter Ruth Barros, wife of Amazonia bishop Saulo Barros, also present for the briefing.

The Barroses had earlier that afternoon outlined for the delegation the challenges of ministry in the newly formed Amazonia diocese where social services are stretched to capacity given demand. The diocese would benefit from a companion relationship with a dedicated and supportive diocese of the Episcopal Church, the delegation agreed.

Similar existing and emerging companion relationships, in addition to Brasilia-Indianapolis, include Sao Paulo-Central Pennsylvania; Rio de Janeiro-Atlanta; Curitiba-California (San Francisco Bay Area); and Pelotas-Ottawa, Canada. Open to new companion relationships, in addition to Amazonia, are the Recife, Southern, and Southwestern dioceses, as well as the Missionary District of the West.

“The great challenge is to achieve a process of social inclusion that is just,” environmental minister Silva said, noting that in the last four years of Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva’s government, the number of persons living in poverty has decreased by some 19.4 percent.

“Developing countries don’t want to make the same mistakes developed countries have made,” she added.

Silva spoke of her agency’s tenacious work to overcome problems with large-scale private-sector development projects, including the building of roadways.

“Now a diverse group of various segments of society is involved in building this road, and this group is evaluating the process to see the government keeping its promises according to the plan,” Silva said. “Today, the road is being built, and deforestation has diminished by some 91 percent.”

She said the matter of “combating deforestation in the Amazon now involves 13 government ministries” coordinated by national officials under a plan begun in 2004.

“In the beginning, no one believed it would work. In its second year, the plan decreased deforestation in this area by 50 percent,” Silva said, “and this year, the plan’s third year, it appears that deforestation will decrease again.”

Noting Jefferts Schori’s own training as an oceanographer, Silva spoke of the need to protect Brazil’s fresh water supply and unique animal species.

Jefferts Schori, in sermons following the dialogue, said Silva “has passion and certainty about her work, and she believes it is about bringing peace that is only about bringing justice”¦ bringing abundance to those who suffer with so little,” considering the “whole garden” of creation.

Preaching in both the Brasilia and Porto Alegre cathedrals on the Sunday scripture lessons of Isaiah 6:1-8 and John 20:19-23, Jefferts Schori called the congregations to “Receive Holy Spirit, and go out there to build a world of peace.”

She asked: “What prevents us from being able to say ‘yes’ to God’s dream of a healed world? Who can God send? Who will go for us?

“The prayer of our hearts is that we will be able to say, ‘Here I am, send me,'” she said. “May peace be the product of our hands and hearts and minds. May we be peace for the whole world.”

The full article is here.

Pondering the Great Commission
Baptism not a goal, but a relationship with God
By Katharine Jefferts Schori, July 06, 2007

[Episcopal Life] I met recently with a group of appointed missionaries of the Episcopal Church. They gathered for 10 days in New York for orientation before leaving to do mission. It was an enormous privilege to meet them and see their energy and enthusiasm (which means “filled with God”) for this adventure.

We had an opportunity for conversation, and one young man shared his concern about how to understand the Great Commission, particularly the directive to baptize, especially in a multifaith environment. It was a wonderful question that engages us all at one level or another.

How do we engage in evangelism, and particularly in the specific directives of Matthew 28:19-20? Go therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

This passage marks the end of Matthew’s Gospel, and its explicitly Trinitarian language should make us aware that it probably reflects the practice of early Christian communities, some time after the death and resurrection of Jesus. Yet the question remains: How do we respond to this sending of the disciples, in which we understand all Christians participate, into a multifaith world?

If we believe that Jesus’ saving work is for the whole world, that should relieve some of our immediate anxiety. He is pretty clear that he is not here to judge the world, but to love the world and invite all into relationship with Love itself (John 12:32 — And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself — and John 12:47 — I do not judge anyone who hears my words and does not keep them, for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world). Judgment comes at the end of time, and until then you and I repeatedly are urged not to judge others.

Yet the ancient question remains: Is baptism necessary for salvation? Theologians have wrestled with this in a number of ways and made some remarkably gracious and open-ended responses. Vatican II affirmed that salvation is possible outside the church, even though some statements by Roman Catholic authorities in years since have sought to retreat from that position.

Karl Rahner spoke about “anonymous Christians,” whose identity is known to God alone. John MacQuarrie recognized the presence of the Logos or Word in other traditions.

But the more interesting question has to do with baptism itself. Like all sacraments, we understand baptism as an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace (Catechism, BCP, p. 857). It is an outward recognition of grace that is both given and already present through God’s action.

When we look at some of the lives of holy people who follow other religious traditions, what do we see? Mahatma Gandhi and the Dalai Lama both exemplify Christ-like lives. Would we assume that there is no grace present in lives like these? A conclusion of that sort seems to verge on the only unforgivable sin, against the Holy Spirit (Matthew 12:30-32).

If I believe that God is more than I can imagine, conceptualize or understand, then I must be willing to acknowledge that God may act in ways that are beyond my ken, including in people who do not follow the Judeo-Christian tradition. Note that I include our Jewish brothers and sisters, for Scripture is very clear that God made a covenant with Israel. That covenant was not abrogated in Jesus. Scripture also speaks of a covenant with Abraham that extends to his offspring, including Ishmael. Our Muslim brothers and sisters claim him as their ancestor. In some way, God continues to act in the tradition we call Islam.

Well, if God is already at work in other religious traditions, why would we bother to teach, make disciples or baptize? The focus of our evangelical work can never be imposing our own will (despite the wretched examples of forced conversion in the history of Christianity), but there is a real urgency to sharing the good news.

The full article is here.

I’m not really sure we need to post yet another news story about Katharine Jefferts Schori. At least to this elf, they all begin to sound alike. But in the “For the Record” category, here’s an excerpt from the Houston Chronicle’s article on the Presiding Bishop’s recent visit there.

From the Houston Chronicle:

Episcopal leader urges teamwork in repairing the world

[…]

“The reality is that reconciliation and freedom go hand in hand,” she told Houstonians and members of the Union of Black Episcopalians in a morning service at downtown’s Christ Church Cathedral. “The irony is that freedom, reconciliation and the reign of God are all around us, and yet none of them is fully known or experienced ”” not yet.”

Jefferts Schori, who was elected the first female leader of the 2.3 million-member Episcopal Church in June 2006, is on her first official visit to Houston. Her sermon was a highlight of the 39th annual meeting of the Union of Black Episcopalians, many participants said. She will lead a forum today at the conference, which concludes Friday.

“We live in a world that is not yet whole, and we understand our vocation to be its healing or repair,” she said in a sanctuary filled with both black and white Episcopalians. “Our Jewish brothers and sisters call it ‘Tikkun Alam,’ the repair of the world.”

A healed world is an ancient dream, the presiding bishop said during her sermon. Telling stories of both joy and grief is part of the healing process.

“Over and over and over again, the prophets railed against those who brought greater divisions to the world, those who bring more injustice, those whose deeds sow destruction,” she said.

Jefferts Schori said there are many kinds of reconciliations ”” “between individuals, within families, among nations, between politicians and, yes, even theological factions.”

The last was a subtle reference to the struggle between the Episcopal Church and the global Anglican Communion over the role of gays in the church. The 77 million-member worldwide church has been in turmoil since 2003, when the Americans consecrated an openly gay bishop.

“Why is loving our neighbors such hard work?” she asked, as the standing-room-only congregation laughed.

Here’s the full article.

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Also of note on the Katharine Jefferts Schori beat:

A reader sent us links to the podcast of her recent radio appearance in Virginia. This elf has been too busy to listen and normally doesn’t like to post things without verifying them herself. However, the reader noted that the call-in section of the show was quite interesting in places. The easiest place to find all the links is the Lead blog (part of the Episcopal Cafe site).

If any readers have listened to the podcast and have specific suggestions as to short segments you recommend, we’d welcome that information. Thanks.

Jefferts Schori wasn’t shy in discussing the church’s history in America.

“There are a whole lot of evil tales wrapped up in the history of this place, and a whole lot of good ones,” she said. “The rub is telling the difference.”

She specifically addressed the church’s complicity in the slave trade and the subjugation of American Indians.

“That has not yet fully redeemed itself,” she said. “The work is not yet over.”

“In the next century, God will call on us all in humility to redeem the evil deeds of the past.”

Yesterday’s service was not a somber affair, though. It was warm, but an occasional breeze offered enough respite to keep the crowd focused on the celebratory tone of the day.

“That it’s lasted this long is astounding,” David Silek, who came from Front Royal in Warren County for the day, said of the Episcopal Church’s presence in the U.S. “I realized how blessed we’ve been when I was driving down here on I-95. I realized the difference then from now. If I were the captain, I could now call the queen and say, ‘We’re here.'”

Sandra Garner, a parishioner from Petersburg, took an even more succinct approach: “It means to me that God is alive.”

Read it all.

From the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

So far, [Katharine Jefferts] Schori is speaking softly, but signaling that there may be a steel fist beneath the velvet glove.

Backed by the national church, the Diocese of Virginia has launched legal action to regain property of the breakaway congregations.

Schori said her approach is to act as the church’s chief pastor, keep dialogue going, and work toward “adaptive solutions” that will “hold us together” despite differences.

“If the pastoral responses fail, and there are attempts to destroy the structure, the way you respond is the structural way, the canonical way,” she said. “When you get out the big guns, the pastoral solution has failed.”

And, in the American way, the faithful may end up fighting it out in civil court.

Read it all.

From The Living Church:

What’s wrong with this picture? What is wrong with this picture is that it is not the complete picture.

Max DePree, author of Leadership Jazz and Leadership is an Art, says that the first task of the leader is to define reality. The problem with this quote from our Presiding Bishop””and she has said much the same thing in several venues””is that although there are places of health and vitality in The Episcopal Church, this assessment amounts to no more than happy talk.

What is “happy talk”? John Kotter, professor of leadership at Harvard Business School, says that too much happy talk from senior leaders can lull everyone into a sense of complacency. Mr. Kotter states that the failure of leaders to establish a (healthy) sense of urgency is one of several reasons that organizations fail.

A survey of The Episcopal Church taken a couple of years ago, “Faith Communities Today,” asked congregations to complete a survey which asked questions similar to those found on the parochial reports. When the compilers of the survey compared the completed surveys with those of that congregation’s parochial reports, it was determined that the survey results contradicted the parochial report data. Only those churches that were growing 10 percent or more per year “told the truth.” The vast majority of churches reported that they were doing better than their parochial reports indicated. Happy talk.

The task of the leader of an organization in a time of crisis is two-fold: to be a non-anxious presence, and to develop a sense of urgency. A look at the baptized membership and average Sunday attendance in The Episcopal Church indicates that we are a denomination in decline….

Read the whole article.

from the Hays Daily News:

In an unprecedented visit, the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church visited Hays on Monday night.

Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori visited St. Michael’s Episcopal Church as part of a marathon three-day, 15-town tour of western Kansas.
“It’s a real honor for us,” said the Rev. Craig Brown, pastor of St. Michael Episcopal Church. “It’s been a long time since a presiding bishop has come to western Kansas. To my knowledge, we have not had the presiding bishop come to St. Michael’s specifically.”

Jefferts Schori made the visit at the invitation of Bishop James Adams, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Western Kansas.
The trip included dinner and a conversation Monday night, and a stop at St. Andrew, north of Hays, this morning.

Read it all.

Update: More from AP here.

Check it out.

BILL MOYERS: As I read about the conflict in your church, what I find is that both sides treat the Bible as their source, but they come to totally opposite conclusions as to what the Bible says. What do you make of that? As a scientist and a believer.

BISHOP KATHARINE JEFFERTS SCHORI: Our ways of reading Scripture shape the conclusions we come to. And often what we go looking for shapes the conclusions about what we read. I’ll give you a– you know, a loaded example. The story of David and Jonathan.

You know, Canonically, the traditional way of reading that has been about the friendship between two men. It says in the Scripture that David loved Jonathan with a love surpassing women. Many gay and lesbian people in our church today say, “This is a text – that says something constructive about the love between people of the same gender.” Yet our tradition has rarely been able to look at it with those eyes. I think that’s a fertile ground for some serious Biblical scholarship and some encounter from people who come to different conclusions.

BILL MOYERS: If biology, as I understand it does, tells us that homosexuality is– is a genetic given. And religion says homosexuality is a sin in the eyes of God, can those two perceptions ever be reconciled?

BISHOP KATHARINE JEFFERTS SCHORI: How do we come to a conclusion that it’s a sin in the eyes of God?

BILL MOYERS: Well, you’re the-

BISHOP KATHARINE JEFFERTS SCHORI: What texts do we read that-

BILL MOYERS: But you know, all of your adversaries say that it is.

BISHOP KATHARINE JEFFERTS SCHORI: Well, I would have them go back to the very sources they find so black and white about that, and ask what’s the context of this passage? What was it written to address? What was going on underneath it that this appears to speak to? And I think we find when we do some very serious scholarship, that in almost every case, it’s speaking about a cultural context that looks nothing like the one in which we’re wrestling with homosexuality today.

BILL MOYERS: So how do you read– Jonathan and David, that story?

BISHOP KATHARINE JEFFERTS SCHORI: I think it’s got some– challenging things to say to us who have said for hundreds of years, thousands of years that it’s inappropriate for two men to love each other in that way.

BILL MOYERS: Is this a moral issue to you?

BISHOP KATHARINE JEFFERTS SCHORI: It’s a moral issue in the sense that part of the job of a church is to help all Christians grow up into the full stature of Christ. It’s to help all of us to lead holy lives The question is what does that holy life look like?

BILL MOYERS: Well, many conservative, traditional Christians say that the homosexual life is not a holy life.

BISHOP KATHARINE JEFFERTS SCHORI: They would say that it’s only holy if it’s celibate. And I think we’ve got more examples out of Scripture even to offer in challenge to that.

Read it all.

Read it all.

From ENS:

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori sent a short e-mail message to the House of Bishops urging “a calm approach to today’s announcement regarding 2008 Lambeth Conference invitations, a subject on which I plan to make no formal statement at this time. It is possible that aspects of this matter may change in the next 14 months, and the House of Bishops’ September meeting offers us a forum for further discussion.”