During the plenary session, [Katharine] Jefferts Schori and [Bonnie] Anderson reported on their activities since the March Council meeting.
Later in the afternoon, Nigerian Anglican Davis Mac-Iyalla, founder of his country’s only gay-rights organization, Changing Attitude Nigeria, met with Council’s International Concerns (INC) and National Concerns (NAC) committees.
During her remarks to the plenary session, Jefferts Schori told Council that recently she has been contemplating how language can be used to allow for “true conversation” — what she called “non-violent language” — or how “violent language” is used instead for “leaping to judgment.”
The church, Jefferts Schori said, must consider how it interacts with the world. “How do we keep the space open so that we can truly learn from each other?” she asked.
Jefferts Schori also outlined her travel schedule and the various groups and people with whom she has met. Most recently she spent time with Archbishop of Canterbury Dr. Rowan Williams while she was in Washington D.C. last week to testify on global warming before a U.S. Senate committee hearing. Williams is spending much of a three-month sabbatical at Georgetown University.
Anderson concentrated her report to Council on her experience of the Towards Effective Anglican Mission (TEAM) conference in South Africa in March and her subsequent travel to Livingstone, Zambia to participate in the rollout of an Episcopal Relief and Development (ERD) anti-malaria project.
The Episcopal Church’s Chief Operating Officer Linda Watt also gave Council an overview of what she called “the richness of the work” done at the Episcopal Church Center in New York City. She urged Council members to visit the church’s website to access the websites of individual mission and ministry website “where you can really feel the pulse of the work we are doing directly.”
During her remarks to the plenary session, Jefferts Schori told Council that recently she has been contemplating how language can be used to allow for “true conversation” — what she called “non-violent language” — or how “violent language” is used instead for “leaping to judgment.”
The church, Jefferts Schori said, must consider how it interacts with the world. “How do we keep the space open so that we can truly learn from each other?” she asked.
Is this an encoded way of saying, “I’ve been looking for ways to invalidate any idea or opinion that is contrary to my own,†that is, if someone expresses an opinion that is critical of my own, can I insist that they refrain from using “violent languageâ€, and on those grounds dismiss their criticism? When I point out flaws in what someone is saying, I’m not “leaping to judgment,†I’m giving someone an opportunity to re-state – or even re-think – their case more clearly and accurately. To respond to criticism with, “We need to keep the space open so that we can truly learn from each other,†seems like a convenient way to say, “What you just said doesn’t count because I don’t like it.â€
And I thought the authenticity and love of the Gospel was an innoculation against Newsspeak.
Here’s an idea for keeping “the space” open: don’t take unilateral actions after you’ve been forewarned that they will cut off the “dialogue”. People tend to interpret that as a sign that you’re no longer interesting in learning from them.
I can (unfortunately) hear Cher singing in my mind’s ear: “If I cold turn back time…” 😉
It’s really puzzling isn’t it? If you make the charitable assumption that these reappraisers at least think they mean what they say, the whole of what they promote just collapses under its own weight.
Sabbatical at Georgetown? Interesting. Does anyone know what’s behind that? In the UK it’s been felt by various parties that this is a curious time to be spending three months away from Lambeth. And does the DC location hint at developments to come?
Connecticutian –
Oh, say not, “unilateral”
For that has damage collateral
Exposing all the folderol
We have named “prophetical’!
We mean to sound inclusive
Though it’s proven quite elusive
To avoid the word intrusive
Being legally abusive
To those who refuse to see
Our oft touted complexity
Alleged to be agape
But really selfish-ideology!
Or should that be idolatry
Of OUR superior ECUSAL polity
Which makes of the majority
Ruler, ’til we be minority,
Then we don’t give a tinker’s damn!
“Democracy’s a sham!”
“No way some bishops at Lam-
Beth will change our plan.”