I’m writing this as the 76th General Convention of the Episcopal Church gets ready to begin. We meet this year in Anaheim, California (next door to Disneyland, in fact), from July 7 through 17. One wag has already designed a General Convention logo that shows the Episcopal shield capped with Mickey Mouse ears!
General Convention is (so conventional wisdom says) the third largest convention in the nation, surpassed only by the quadrennial gatherings of the national political parties. Certainly the size is daunting. Some 10,000 Episcopalians will converge on Anaheim over the next eleven days. They will include not only those officially involved in legislation (about 840 deputies and 150 bishops), but also media personnel, volunteers, exhibitors, lobbyists in their thousands, and countless visitors. Our former canon to the ordinary, David Seger, is fond of calling it the Greatest Show on Earth, and not inappropriately. It is certainly an enormous family gathering, and that for me is one of General Convention’s great gifts. Every three years, General Convention provides me the opportunity to connect with brothers and sisters from all around the church. At General Convention it is impossible to walk a straight line: wherever you go, friends call out your name and draw you into conversation. The modern word is “networking,” but the experience is considerably more profound. It’s a reminder that “by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body” (1 Corinthains 12:13), an indissoluble bond.
Our diocese is represented by eight deputies, four clergy (Ben Jones, Richard Lightsey, Dan Martins, and Henry Randolph) and four lay (Pam Harris, Charlotte Strowhorn, Christopher Wells, and Scott Wright), in addition to the bishop. De Bada from Grace Church, Fort Wayne, is our delegate to the triennial meeting of the Episcopal Church Women. Please keep all of us in your prayers, not least for strength and endurance. Days begin each morning at 7:30 am with legislative committee meetings, and last until 10:00 or 10:30 pm every night.
While General Convention is a gargantuan gathering of the Episcopal clan, it is also (and primarily) a legislative body. Hundreds of resolutions have been submitted in advance, ranging from liturgical enhancements (the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music is proposing a major infusion of new commemorations to the church’s calendar of saints) to a sweeping revision of the canons that deal with clergy discipline to a proposal (submitted by the Church Pension Group, after a three-year study) for a denomination-wide health insurance plan for clergy and full-time lay employees. Dozens of pre-filed resolutions address pressing social issues. We will struggle, not surprisingly, with financial matters, as the national structure of the Episcopal Church deals with a shortfall in its receipts. You can read all of the pre-filed resolutions at http://gc2009.org/ViewLegislation/ .
Also not surprisingly, it’s likely that human sexuality will dominate General Convention and be something of a subtext for all of its deliberations. Many dioceses have submitted resolutions asking Convention to authorize liturgies for the blessing of same-sex unions. (These resolutions themselves offer a wide range of ways to accomplish this.) Others are seeking an overturn of Resolution B-033 from 2006, which called for restraint in the nomination, election, and consent of persons to the episcopate whose manner of life would challenge the unity of the Anglican Communion. (The implication of B-033 is that the Episcopal Church pledges, for the sake of Anglican unity, not again to ordain bishops living in a same-sex partnership.) As of this writing – I’ve been in Anaheim for less than a day – I’m hearing a good deal of “buzz” around these resolutions, and a certain sadness that once again a single issue will make it more difficult to focus on other serious matters. Not least among these is the need to re-energize the church for the work of evangelism in the face a church-wide decline in average Sunday attendance. That, I believe, is where we should be investing our time: in the Great Commission (Matthew 28:16-20) and the Great Commandment (John 13:34). Regarding human sexuality, my hope is that we do absolutely nothing – pass no legislation, make no pronouncements, take no hasty action. This is a time, I believe, when we should invest ourselves in prayer, in pastoral care, and in theological reflection, rather than in passing resolutions (in either direction) which would further fragment the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. The spiritual discipline of silence seems particularly appropriate; we should avoid the temptation to rush into a solution that would inevitably create winners, losers, and division.
Please pray not only for the deputies and me, but above all for General Convention itself, that we will together seek the heart of Jesus and submit ourselves to him. May this 76th General Convention redound to the glory of God and the building up of his Kingdom!
Yours in Christ,
–(The Rt. Rev.) Edward Little is Bishop of Northern Indiana
He is definitely right about the inability of the denonomination’s inability to stop perseverating about homosexuality – at a time of its greatest crisis. Sort of a like a delusional person in the sea clutching on to what he thinks is great treasure but is really a heavy fake. The future is truly bleak. The homosexualist agendites won’t allow the focus to be turned until there is no life left.
I’ve known Bishop Ed for many years and he was very helpful in my return to Christian faith over a year ago. Ed is a person of great faith and great optimism.