Deconstructing Rowan

When I read Rowan Williams’ “Communion, Covenant and our Anglican Future” (CCAF) at the beginning of the week—it is now Friday—it pushed a lot of my hot buttons. I have been working fitfully all week trying to tease apart the content of the archbishop’s reflection and to express some of the thoughts it has inspired. By now, of course, everyone may be weary of reading analyses of CCAF.

Weary or not, I now offer my own deconstruction of CCAF and thoughts about what the Archbishop has said and where his thinking is tending. You can read my essay, “Reflecting on the Archbishop’s Reflection” on Lionel Deimel’s Farrago. Although my own analysis comes late to the party, I hope it will be found worth reading. It is, of course, written by an unabashed Episcopalian who admittedly is finding both the archbishop and the Anglican Communion a bit tiresome.

Here are a few random thoughts from “Reflecting on the Archbishop’s Reflection” that are discussed at greater length there:

1. The archbishop is showing signs of flexibility, probably because he is afraid of how things will play out. He needs to expand his horizons even more.
2. Rowan Williams and others promoting an Anglican covenant are revolutionaries, not preservers of the Anglican Communion. They have portrayed the Communion as being the way they would like it to be, not as it has been.
3. The archbishop has conflated the issues of same-sex unions and gay bishops. The issues are separable and should be dealt with individually.
4. Heterosexual marriage isn’t threatened by same-sex unions. The Church has invested more significance in marriage than it deserves.
5. The archbishop apparently knows nothing about risk assessment or change management.

Somewhat arrogantly, perhaps, I have placed my latest essay in the Church Resources section of my Web site. I considered placing in under Commentary, but I am hoping that it may have some enduring value as a “resource.” Time will tell. In any case, let me make a special invitation to readers to comment on my essay. If appropriate, I will discuss any comments I receive here. Click on “Send comments here,” at the left to offer your thoughts.

What D025 Has Done

Ann Rodgers wrote a story a couple of days ago for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette headlined “Episcopal gay bishops decision confounds activists.” The story, of course, was about General Convention Resolution D025, which has now been passed in its final form by both houses. (The margin of victory was approximately 2–1 among bishops, clergy, and laity.) The resolution reads as follows:

Commitment and Witness to Anglican Communion

Resolved, the House of Bishops concurring, That the 76th General Convention reaffirm the continued participation of The Episcopal Church as a constituent member of the Anglican Communion; give thanks for the work of the bishops at the Lambeth Conference of 2008; reaffirm the abiding commitment of The Episcopal Church to the fellowship of churches that constitute the Anglican Communion and seek to live into the highest degree of communion possible; and be it further

Resolved, That the 76th General Convention encourage dioceses, congregations, and members of The Episcopal Church to participate to the fullest extent possible in the many instruments, networks and relationships of the Anglican Communion; and be it further

Resolved, That the 76th General Convention reaffirm its financial commitment to the Anglican Communion and pledge to participate fully in the Inter-Anglican Budget; and be it further

Resolved, That the 76th General Convention affirm the value of “listening to the experience of homosexual persons,” as called for by the Lambeth Conferences of 1978, 1988, and 1998, and acknowledge that through our own listening the General Convention has come to recognize that the baptized membership of The Episcopal Church includes same-sex couples living in lifelong committed relationships “characterized by fidelity, monogamy, mutual affection and respect, careful, honest communication, and the holy love which enables those in such relationships to see in each other the image of God” (2000-D039); and be it further

Resolved, That the 76th General Convention recognize that gay and lesbian persons who are part of such relationships have responded to God’s call and have exercised various ministries in and on behalf of God’s One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church and are currently doing so in our midst; and be it further

Resolved, That the 76th General Convention affirm that God has called and may call such individuals, to any ordained ministry in The Episcopal Church, and that God’s call to the ordained ministry in The Episcopal Church is a mystery which the Church attempts to discern for all people through our discernment processes acting in accordance with the Constitution and Canons of The Episcopal Church; and be it further

Resolved, That the 76th General Convention acknowledge that members of The Episcopal Church as of the Anglican Communion, based on careful study of the Holy Scriptures, and in light of tradition and reason, are not of one mind, and Christians of good conscience disagree about some of these matters.

I’m not sure this resolution has “confounded” any church “activists.” I do not feel confounded personally. Certainly, people are spinning the passage of D025 to see what they want to see, but I doubt that many are missing, in their heart of hearts, the real message of D025.

No doubt I will be accused of spin as well, but I want to take a crack at evaluating the significance of D025.

Moratorium

The big concern about D025 on both sides of the Atlantic seems to be with The Episcopal Church’s moratorium on gay bishops. Analysis here is best begun with a few questions and answers.

Q. Is there now a moratorium in The Episcopal Church on the consecration of gay bishops?

A. No.

Q. Was there ever such a moratorium?

A. No.

Q. Were the canons regarding the ordination of gays changed in 2006?

A. No.

Q. Were the canons regarding the ordination of gays changed in 2009?

A. No.

Q. Has anything changed?

A. Yes, definitely.

Q. Will there soon be more gay bishops in The Episcopal Church?

A. Maybe, maybe not. There surely will be eventually.

Resolution B033, passed at the end of the 2006 General Convention—see my 2006 essay “Is the Episcopal Church About to Surrender?”—“call[ed] upon” those responsible for approving the consecration of a new bishop to “exercise restraint by not consenting to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion.” The resolution did not demand restraint, nor could it, as the constitution and canons of the church prescribe how bishops are chosen. Those regulations cannot be overridden by a General Convention resolution. In particular, Canon III.1.2 applies to the selection of bishops:

No person shall be denied access to the discernment process for any ministry, lay or ordained, in this Church because of race, color, ethnic origin, national origin, sex, marital status, sexual orientation, disabilities or age, except as otherwise provided by these Canons. No right to licensing, ordination, or election is hereby established.

One can quibble about the relation of this canon to B033, but many considered the General Convention resolution to have either violated Canon III.1.2 directly (and to therefore have been of no legal effect) or to have encouraged its violation. In practice, no gay bishop has been selected since B033 was enacted. We cannot know if the resolution prevented a gay bishop from being selected; gay candidates for the episcopate were certainly considered during this period, even though none was actually elected.

The legislative committee out of which D025 emerged in nearly its final state chose to follow the advice of the Presiding Bishop in choosing how to deal with B033:

“I've been very clear in my public communications for the last few months that my hope is that we not attempt to repeal past legislation at General Convention—it’s a bad legislative practice,” said Jefferts Schori. “I would far more prefer us to say where we are today, in 2009, to make a positive statement about our desire to include all people fully in this church and that we be clear about who we are as the Episcopal Church.[”] (From “Episcopal Church leaders give webcast preview of General Convention .”)

The resulting legislation has three parts:

1. A declaration of support for the Anglican Communion.
2. A description of the church’s view of long-term, monogamous, same-sex couples and the access to ordained positions in the church afforded persons in such relationships.
3. An acknowledgment that neither The Episcopal Church nor the Anglican Communion is of one mind with respect to the matters dealt with in the second part of the resolution.

One gets the feeling that parts (1) and (3) are sweeteners for, what for many, is the bitter pill of (2), the heart of the resolution. What the general convention did was to reiterate what the church has already said about gays, on one hand, and to call attention to the non-discriminatory canons by which people attain ordained positions, including bishop, in The Episcopal Church. The church has no problems with long-term, monogamous same-sex relationships, and persons in such relationships are perfectly acceptable as bishops, all things being equal.

B033, of course, is not mentioned in the resolution. What of it? Technically, B033 has been neither repealed nor modified, and it is therefore still in effect. On the other hand, as a later resolution, it is D025, not B033 that represents the General Convention’s current thinking on the matter of gay bishops. Is the church really saying now that anyone, including a gay person in a monogamous same-sex relationship, is as eligible to be considered for elevation to bishop as anyone else, but don’t dare vote for such a person? I think not. B033 is essentially dead. Some who must consent to the consecration of any future episcopal candidate may think about B033 in making their decision. Certainly, a responsible decision maker must consider the possible consequences of his or her vote, but D025 will make a vote for a gay candidate much easier, as the “advice” the General Convention gave in 2006 is rescinded, de facto, if not de jure, by D025.

Other Matters

I believe The Episcopal Church generally, and the 2006 General Convention particularly, has been disingenuous in its dealings with the Anglican Communion. Had it been asked directly if it wanted to declare an indefinitely long moratorium on the consecration of gay bishops, the 2006 General Convention would almost assuredly have voted no. Bishops were afraid they might not be invited to the 2008 Lambeth Conference unless they did something that at least looked like a moratorium, however, so they came up with the ambiguous—some would say duplicitous—B033. Deputies were given insufficient time to consider the legislation fully and, at the urging the Presiding Bishop and his elected successor, probably acted against their collective better judgment.

What is refreshing about D025, despite a certain obliqueness I would have preferred to have seen eliminated, is that it represents The Episcopal Church as it is, rather than how we would like others to perceive it is in order to get them off our backs. After repeatedly playing games with the bigots and despots among the Anglican primates, our church has declared that it has no essential problem with homosexual sex and maintains no institutional barriers to the consecration of future gay bishops.

The Rev. Dr. Ian T. Douglas, in a video explaining D025 posted on the General Convention’s Media Hub Web site, described the resolution as being “honest,” “clear,” and “transparent.” That may be a bit of an exaggeration, but his point is well taken. Relating D025 to the Anglican Communion, Douglas said, “Communion is about being genuine with each other. There is no real communion if we don't speak the truth in love.” Someone should have told this to The Episcopal Church six years ago.

President of the House of Deputies Bonnie Anderson and Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Shori have now written a letter to Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams to offer their perspective on the passage of D025. “We understand Resolution D025 to be more descriptive than prescriptive in nature—a statement that reaffirms commitments already made by The Episcopal Church and that acknowledges certain realities of our common life,” they wrote. D025 was passed “with the hope that such authenticity would contribute to deeper conversation in these matters.” Anderson and Jefferts Schori assert that B033 has not been repealed, while acknowledging that, for many, at least, it effectively has been.

I strongly take issue with Jefferts Schori’s view that repealing past legislation is “bad legislative practice.” I think she made up this ludicrous assertion in order to be able to say to the Anglican Communion—to the Archbishop of Canterbury in this case—that B033 is still in effect. Practically, it is not.

I was disappointed in my own assisting bishop’s statement in Ann Rodgers’ story. The Rt. Rev. Robert H. Johnson apparently said that the General Convention did not repeal B033. “I don’t see that there would be any threat to the moratorium unless we get presented with another partnered lesbian or gay bishop. That would be the test. But [D025] was a clarification, reminding us of where we are in the Episcopal Church. That is the way the bishops saw it,” Rodgers quotes Johnson as saying. I’m sure that Johnson is concerned about retaining the conservatives who have remained in the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh and about not unnecessarily alienated those who have left the diocese but might conceivably come back.

My own view is that anyone who has been paying attention could not have been surprised by the position taken in D025, though he or she might have been surprised that General Convention had the courage actually to articulate it. Anyone who cannot live with a church that can pass a D025 might be happier in some other church.

I note that D025 contains a number of grammatical flaws and is rather more effusive than absolutely necessarily in its support of the Anglican Communion, which, in the past six years, can best be characterized as the instrument of our church’s persecution. (See my post “D025.”) Predictably, the Archbishop of Canterbury has criticized The Episcopal Church for abandoning the mythical moratorium, while taking no notice of our support offered the Anglican Communion in the General Convention resolution. We are, of course, used to this kind of treatment. Perhaps we are finally getting fed up with it, however.

Finally, D025 is gratifying to Episcopalians like me who have seen our church tie itself into knots trying to reconcile the irreconcilable and placate those who want nothing more than to cast us into the outer darkness. D025 should also provide some hope to GLBT people in Africa and elsewhere who have been the hidden victims of the ignorance and prejudice of all too many Anglican leaders. There is reason to hope that a new day is dawning for authentic Anglicanism. May its light shine in the most benighted corners of the Anglican universe.

In Support of Judge Sotomayor (maybe)

Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to a seat on the Supreme Court seems most threatened (though perhaps not seriously) by her remarks to students at U.C. Berkeley School of Law in 2001. In a lecture, “A Latina Judge’s Voice,” Sotomayor said, “Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”

People—Republicans, actually, which is not the same thing—have asked if this remark means that Sotomayor believes that a judge’s ethnicity or life experience should influence his or her decisions, irrespective of applicable law. Sotomayor has been slow to respond to this question. Prior to yesterday, she seemed to minimize the significance of her remark and emphasized her commitment to following written law and judicial precedent. I have found Sotomayor’s responses unsatisfactory, as I thought there was a point to what she said at Berkeley, and I could not understand her reluctance to make it.

Following the troublesome sentence, Sotomayor said the following:

Let us not forget that wise men like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Justice Cardozo voted on cases which upheld both sex and race discrimination in our society. Until 1972, no Supreme Court case ever upheld the claim of a woman in a gender discrimination case. I, like Professor Carter, believe that we should not be so myopic as to believe that others of different experiences or backgrounds are incapable of understanding the values and needs of people from a different group. Many are so capable. As Judge Cedarbaum pointed out to me, nine white men on the Supreme Court in the past have done so on many occasions and on many issues including Brown.

However, to understand takes time and effort, something that not all people are willing to give. For others, their experiences limit their ability to understand the experiences of others. Other simply do not care. Hence, one must accept the proposition that a difference there will be by the presence of women and people of color on the bench. Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see. My hope is that I will take the good from my experiences and extrapolate them further into areas with which I am unfamiliar. I simply do not know exactly what that difference will be in my judging. But I accept there will be some based on my gender and my Latina heritage.

I find this very close to an acceptable explanation of the troublesome remark. Unfortunately, it contains a couple of additional problematic elements, elements present, no doubt, because the speaker was not thinking of her future Senate hearing to become a Supreme Court justice.

Critics have picked up on this sentence: “Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see.” This ill-phrased statement gives critics reason to ask if Sotomayor believes that judges pick and choose among facts before them based on their life experience or, in the least favorable interpretation, based on their prejudices. A more sympathetic view is that our experiences in life sensitize us to some issues but fail to sensitize us to others. Sotomayor’s use of “choose” was unfortunate. The point she should have been making is that our life experience constrains our vision in ways that we do not explicitly choose.

Also distressing is the final sentence of the passage: “But I accept there will be some [difference in my judging] based on my gender and my Latina heritage.” At yesterday’s hearing, Sotomayor offered an explanation aimed, I assume, at countering this statement. Her background, she suggested, would affect her judging process, not her actual judgments. I understand what she was getting at, but this explanation is nonsensical. If her background affects how she works as a judge, it necessarily will influence her work products. That is the whole point of the last several decades of work in process improvement.

Since Sonia Sotomayor doesn’t seem too good at helping herself—the goal of a Supreme Court nominee these days is to talk at length, saying as little as possible—let me offer a broader defense of her 2001 remarks.

If an intelligent Martian landed on Earth tomorrow who knew our language but had no experience with our culture, that Martian might make an adequate judge in traffic court, at least some of the time. You wouldn’t want this beast on the Supreme Court, however. Why not? Because the law exists within the context of a complex society, a Supreme Court justice needs to understand how the law relates to that society—legal arguments often involve analogies requiring a deep understanding of the culture for their understanding and evaluation—and how a particular judgment might affect society going forward. The Supreme Court hears the tough cases for which the law, as written and heretofore interpreted, is somehow inadequate. Having extensive life experience is therefore invaluable to a Supreme Court justice, where the insights gained therefrom are especially needed. We’re not talking about indulging prejudices, but about have as good a grasp as possible of the nuances of society at all levels that might be relevant.

How does this relate to the “Latina woman” of Sotomayor’s speech? Surely picking such a person off the street and making her a Supreme Court justice would put no more insight on the bench than would plucking a white male from Harvard Law School. Sonia Sotomayor, however, is living an upper middle class life in the American mainstream. As such, she could be expected to appreciate (and, to some extent, share) the perspective of the Harvard Law candidate. Additionally, however, she possesses an understanding of a completely different slice of American society that the typical white lawyer would not be expected to appreciate in the same way. That understanding is a resource she brings to the judicial process, both to help her understand the issues before the court and the likely consequences of its decisions. This is what could make the judgment of the Latina women better than that of the white male.

Sonia Sotomayor should have said something like the foregoing. I find the argument compelling, inclining me to support her nomination. I am slightly less impressed than I might otherwise be, however, because she has not clearly articulated this obvious argument herself.

Nice try, but

For its 76th General Convention in Anaheim, which is going on now, The Episcopal Church touted its “Media Hub” as an effective tool to follow the proceedings. This Web site (at http://gchub.episcopalchurch.org/), was supposed to provide live video, video on demand, and links to other information related to the General Convention. As an Episcopalian who attended much of the 2006 General Convention but who was unable to go to Anaheim this year, I had looked forward to having a virtual seat for General Convention 2009 events.

It is perhaps an overstatement to say that the Media Hub is a colossal flop, but, at least for me, it has been a source of much exasperation and disappointment.

It must be said, of course, that the idea of the Media Hub was terrific. Collecting information about the complex, nearly two-week-long event all in one place was surely a good plan. I looked forward to seeing streaming video of live events, as well as video on demand of events I had to miss or wanted to see again. The links to ENS stories are helpful, and legislation tracking is helpful to a point. (The Media Hub provides a different view of the legislative process than does the site at http://gc2009.org/ViewLegislation/, which is probably the ultimate source for what appears on the Media Hub.) Some other features are less obviously useful.

Today, however, I have had it with the Media Hub, and I’ve learned that others have experienced the same problems I have. The video provides good quality picture and sound, but there seem to be more annoying freezes than from other sites. Perhaps the server and bandwidth resources devoted to the Media Hub are inadequate.

More annoying is the less-than-systematic posting of on-demand video. I caught the end of the evening media briefing on Monday, and I have been trying to see the entire event ever since. It was not quickly made available, and I wrote to the e-mail address provided for support. I have received no reply. Since then, more video has been posted, including, apparently, the event I wanted to see. Alas, when I try to view it, Internet Explorer suggests the file is loading, but nothing ever happens. Firefox behaves the same way. More helpfully, Safari quickly tells me that the file, whose path it displays, could not be found. Several other video clips are advertised as available but seemingly are not. Moreover, the listing of on-demand video clips is only approximately in chronological order and includes duplicates.

Most annoying, however, is the fact that there seem to be problems with the code behind the Media Hub front page. Internet Explorer indicates that the page loads, but with errors, the nature of which is unclear. Both Internet Explorer and Firefox display error messages related to scripts running on the page. These messages (or the underlying errors) can make it difficult to close (or use) a window displaying the Media Hub.

Even with its faults, I have continued to visit the Media Hub. It is, after all, the only game in town, for video, anyway. Unfortunately, what I must say to The Episcopal Church is, “Nice try, but you didn’t quite deliver what was promised.” Perhaps the church can do better in 2012.

Postscript. I have been reminded that much of what Episcopalians want to know about the General Convention can be found in its accustomed place, Episcopal Life Online. Episcopal Life Online even has some video and picture galleries. You may not find everything there, but what you do find works.

D025

NOTE: Apparently, I posted this essay after the House of Deputies passed the resolution in question. (The Web site tracking legislation apparently is not always updated in a timely fashion.) Since the resolution was not amended by the deputies, my comments about the resolution itself are still appropriate.

The Episcopal Church’s 2009 General Convention has a lot on its plate, not all of which is of great interest to the world (or even the Anglican Communion) at large. The world will certainly be watching how the convention deals with the 2006 convention’s eleventh-hour Resolution B033, however. (See my earlier post, “Kudos for Bonnie.”) The World Mission Legislative Committee (WMLC) has now reported out resolution D025 for consideration by the House of Deputies, making this a good time to look at how the convention might deal with what many now consider its mistake of three years ago.

Resolution D025 was proposed by D. Rebecca Snow, an attorney and deputy from the Diocese of Alaska. The original text can be found here. The WMLC was assigned a number of resolutions dealing with B033 and chose to rework D025 to produce a proposal on the subject for forwarding to the House of Deputies. The committee vote on the revised resolution was 24–2 among deputies but 2–3 among bishops. (More details are available in the ENS story “B033-related legislation to move to House of Deputies.”) The difference in the vote among deputies and bishops is striking, but it is not clear how significant it is. The bishops may want a stronger or a weaker resolution, or simply a better one, and the votes of five bishops may not be representative of the House of Bishops generally. We may never know, of course, as the resolution may not even reach the junior house in its current form.

I find it interesting (and unhelpful) that the WMLC, while editing D025 a good deal, did not at all modify the Explanation of the resolution. (I assume this is standard practice.) As I have complained before, the General Convention is not always clear about why it is doing what it does. Whereas members of the two legislative houses may cast identical votes for quite diverse reasons, legislative committees could be more helpful by explaining why they have done what they have done. In this case, however, although many words have been changed, the thrust and spirit of the original resolution seem to have come through the committee process intact. Actually, if the committee had to agree on a statement explaining what it just did, its work might take twice as long! Sigh!

I want to offer my own commentary on the current version of the resolution, which I will do paragraph by paragraph. In what follows, the original resolution appears on the left, and the current resolution appears on the right.

D025 as of July 12

The resolution begins:

Resolved, the House of _______ concurring, That this 76th General Convention reaffirm the abiding commitment of The Episcopal Church to the fellowship of churches that constitute the Anglican Communion and seek to live into the highest degree of communion possible; and be it further

Resolved, the House of Bishops concurring, That the 76th General Convention reaffirm the continued participation of The Episcopal Church in the Anglican Communion; give thanks for the work of the bishops at the Lambeth Conference of 2008; reaffirm the abiding commitment of The Episcopal Church to the fellowship of churches that constitute the Anglican Communion and seek to live into the highest degree of communion possible; and be it further

Although the current resolution is not particularly objectionable, one wonders why the committee chose to tinker with the original. This paragraph has lost focus, which should be on our commitment to the Anglican Communion and to maintaining the highest degree of communion possible. (Am I the only person sick of this phrase?) Anyway, if we reaffirm our commitment, why do we need to reaffirm our participation? It seems to me that we reaffirm our participation—whatever that means—by participating. No doubt, the bishops on the committee were responsible for inserting the gratuitous thanks for the work of the Lambeth Conference. (Would bishops have the same fondness for the Anglican Communion if they didn’t get a junket to England every 10 years? Did I really say that? Sorry.) The committee avoided serious irony by not also expressing gratitude for the work of the Primates’ Meeting, the Anglican Consultative Council, or the Archbishop of Canterbury. Reference to the Lambeth Conference calls attention unnecessarily to these omissions. Both the original and current texts omit a needed semicolon before “and seek.”

The resolution continues:

Resolved, That this 76th General Convention encourage dioceses, parishes, and members of The Episcopal Church to participate to the fullest extent possible in the many networks and relationships of the Anglican Communion, including but not limited to networks involving youth, women, and indigenous people; networks and ministries concerned with ecumenical and interfaith work, peace and justice, liturgy, environmental issues, health, and education; and companion diocese relationships; and be it further

Resolved, That the 76th General Convention encourage dioceses, congregations, and members of The Episcopal Church to participate to the fullest extent possible in the many instruments, networks and relationships of the Anglican Communion; and be it further

Mercifully, the committee shortened this provision. Sadly, it did not eliminate it. Participation of the church at all levels should be contingent on its facilitating mission; it should not be an end in itself. The lack of a needed comma after “networks” is clearly an artifact of a faulty editing process.

The next paragraph is the following:

Resolved, That this 76th General Convention reaffirm its financial commitment to the Anglican Communion and pledge to maintain its full asking for the Inter-Anglican Budget; and be it further

Resolved, That the 76th General Convention reaffirm its financial commitment to the Anglican Communion and pledge to participate fully in the Inter-Anglican Budget; and be it further

I think the revised wording is less specific, and may therefore express a slightly weaker commitment than does the original resolution. Personally, I would like to see this resolve dropped. The first paragraph of the resolution implies that we will do our part financially. We should stop at that implication. (Arguably, we are paying more than our fair share. If Nigeria can make demands on the Communion by virtue of its containing such a large share of the world’s Anglicans, let it pay as though that fact means something.) Anyway, this resolve brings to mind our government’s reluctance ever to rule out using nuclear weapons, the purpose of which is to avoid giving our enemies the confidence that they are safe from our nuclear stockpile no matter what they do. Likewise, we should not give the Anglican Communion reason to think that our commitment to paying about a third of the Communion’s expenses is absolute, no matter how much our church is abused by the Communion.

The resolution continues:

Resolved, That this 76th General Convention affirm the value of “listening to the experience of homosexual persons,” as called for by the Lambeth Conferences of 1978, 1988, and 1998, and acknowledge that through our own listening the General Convention has come to recognize that the baptized membership of The Episcopal Church includes same-sex couples living in lifelong committed relationships characterized by fidelity, monogamy, mutual affection and respect, careful, honest communication, and the holy love which enables those in such relationships to see in each other the image of God; and be it further

Resolved, That the 76th General Convention affirm the value of “listening to the experience of homosexual persons,” as called for by the Lambeth Conferences of 1978, 1988, and 1998, and acknowledge that through our own listening the General Convention has come to recognize that the baptized membership of The Episcopal Church includes same-sex couples living in lifelong committed relationships “characterized by fidelity, monogamy, mutual affection and respect, careful, honest communication, and the holy love which enables those in such relationships to see in each other the image of God” (2000-D039); and be it further

This resolve survived without any significant change. (Note, however, that the addition of “(2000-D039)” is not clearly marked as such on the legislation tracking site.) This resolve, of course, is getting to the heart of what the resolution is all about. The text makes its point powerfully and succinctly. The quotation from 2000-D039 is correct, although one might have wished that semicolons had been employed to clarify the syntax. I would also like to see commas around “through our own listening.”

Next, we have the following:

Resolved, That this 76th General Convention recognize that individuals who are part of such relationships have responded to God’s call and have exercised various ministries in and on behalf of God’s One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church over the centuries and are currently doing so in our midst, often without the church’s recognition of their lifelong committed relationships and the blessings bestowed by such relationships, and be it further

Resolved, That the 76th General Convention recognize that gay and lesbian persons who are part of such relationships have responded to God’s call and have exercised various ministries in and on behalf of God’s One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church and are currently doing so in our midst; and be it further

It is certainly positive that this resolve identifies specifically the people about whom it is talking, rather than using the phrase “individuals who are part of such relationships,” referring to the previous resolve. On the other hand, it pleads its case somewhat less passionately. I would place a comma after “Apostolic Church.”

Moving right along, we have:

Resolved, That this 76th General Convention affirm that God may call such individuals, like any other baptized members, to any ordained ministry in The Episcopal Church, which call is tested in our polity through our discernment processes carried out under Canon III of The Episcopal Church and the canons of its dioceses, and be it further

Resolved, That the 76th General Convention affirm that God has called and may call such individuals, to any ordained ministry in The Episcopal Church, which call is tested through our discernment processes acting in accordance with the Constitution and Canons of The Episcopal Church; and be it further

This resolve might be clarified by not having to refer to the previous resolve. I like the addition of “has called and” to the current text. One can quibble about other changes, but I have no strong feelings about them. Another comma fault is present as a result of careless editing. The comma after “individuals” is needed in the original, but it is misplaced in the revised paragraph. Then, there is the matter that our discernment process does not act. There are more serious problems here, however. (See below.)

And now, the last resolve:

Resolved, That this 76th General Convention acknowledge that, while the members of The Episcopal Church, like those in our sister Provinces of the Anglican Communion, are not all of one mind on this issue, and that Christians of good conscience, based on careful study of the Holy Scriptures, may disagree about this issue, the validity of the Church’s sacraments comes from the action of the Holy Spirit in and through them, not from the frail humans celebrating them in God’s name.

Resolved, That the 76th General Convention acknowledge that members of The Episcopal Church as of the Anglican Communion, based on careful study of the Holy Scriptures, and in light of tradition and reason, are not of one mind, and Christians of good conscience disagree about some of these matters.

This final paragraph acknowledges, quite properly, of course, that all Christians are not of one mind concerning LGBT persons, even if The Episcopal Church can agree on matters relating to such persons in a manner specified by its governing documents. The WMLC wisely threw out the reference to the Donatist heresy, which, though relevant, is too complicated to explain adequately here. Alas, the current text is not felicitously phrased. First, there should be a comma after “The Episcopal Church.” But the real problem is that the various elements of the sentence simply do not come in the most logical order. The original phrasing was much better, but it lead to the Donatist business that the committee decided to scrap. There are more serious problems, however, as the resolution refers to members of The Episcopal Church and members of the Anglican Communion. But members of The Episcopal Church are humans, and members of the Anglican Communion are provinces (churches). Oops! Something like the following should be substituted:

Resolved, That this 76th General Convention acknowledge that, whereas the members of The Episcopal Church, like those in our sister Provinces of the Anglican Communion, are not all of one mind about these matters, Christians of good conscience, based even on careful study of the Holy Scriptures, may disagree about them.

I still find myself uncomfortable about the use of “these matters,” as it is not completely clear what matters are being referenced.

Further Thoughts

On the whole, the revised D025 is not a bad effort, even though it needs another copyediting pass. I cannot help but feel that, although the resolution seems to mean to undo the effect of the infamous B033, it doesn’t quite do the job. The draft asserts that the call of “such individuals”—I hate the indirection here—to ordained ministry in our church “is tested through our discernment processes acting in accordance with the Constitution and Canons of The Episcopal Church.” The implication is that the nondiscrimination provisions of our governing documents will cause us to ordain LGBT persons and even consecrate them as bishops. Why don’t we just say that? Those reading this may not know our canons well enough to get the implication. As Richard E. Helmer recently said of this moment in the life of The Episcopal Church,

So it seems to me certain in this moment, as General Convention meets and considers next steps in the aftermath of B033, our primary call is to speak the truth about who and where we are as a Church—perhaps with gusto, perhaps with some humility, or offered with the spice of both.

But it must be the truth. Period.

I could not agree more.

There will be consequences, of course, to passing a resolution such as this one, and not all of the consequences involve the churches of Nigeria, Uganda, or the Southern Cone. In my own diocese, the many conservatives who broke with Bishop Robert Duncan to remain with The Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Pittsburgh will clearly be unhappy with the passage of D025 or anything like it that weakens the virtual moratorium of B033. (See “Diocesan Deputies Help Shape Sexuality Debate” on the diocese’s Web site.) On the other hand, those folks had to know that the trajectory of The Episcopal Church was targeted at the eventual approval of same-sex unions and the selection of bishops without regard to sexual orientation. A failure to abrogate B033 would trouble the more liberal members of the diocese, myself included. We have feelings and passions, too. There is concern that passage of something like D025 will discourage those who have left The Episcopal Church from returning to it. So be it. Non-passage will surely not encourage their return. Property lawsuits might.

As for the Anglican Communion, I believe that we, as a church, have prolonged the agony of the Communion by repeatedly suggesting that we may not go where we know we want to go, where we sincerely believe God is calling us to go, and where we know we are going soon, if not in 2009. We are not willing, and we should not be willing, to wait for consensus about LGBT persons within the Anglican Communion because we know that, effectively, that will happen when hell freezes over. We actually have a better chance of preserving the Anglican Communion by making it clear now where we stand, thereby telling the Communion that it can accept the decision of an autonomous member of the fellowship, or it can change the nature of the Communion and go its own way without us. One way or another, as our conservative brothers and sisters have advised us, the Anglican Communion is going to change. If we are to be a part of the Anglican Communion, we must ensure that we are part of a Communion we can live with. If a divorce in our fellowship is in our future, we will not stand alone, and we will be better off once that painful divorce is final.

Kudos for Bonnie

The Lead reported yesterday that the House of Deputies will be given the option of discussing the controversial Resolution B033 passed in the waning hours of The Episcopal Church’s 2006 General Convention.

In an e-mail message to deputies, House of Deputies president Bonnie Anderson said that the House would be given the opportunity to spend two hours early in the Convention in a committee of the whole, not debating any of the dozen or so resolutions proposed to deal with the situation created by B033, but discussing the resolution “apart from the context of legislative procedure.”

Anderson’s message, as reported by The Lead, was as following:

Dear Deputies and First Alternates,

With just a few days left before we gather together in Anaheim for the 76th General Convention, I want to inform you of a procedure available to the House of Deputies that we will propose to use to have a discussion, not debate, regarding resolution B033 that was concurred at the 75th General Convention. We will have this discussion in the context of a “Committee of the Whole”. The purpose of this discussion will be to exchange information and viewpoints among the deputies, and to inform Legislative Committee #8 World Mission, to which committee all the resolutions relative to B033 have been assigned.

What it is:

Committee of the Whole is a parliamentary process that enables a legislative body such as the House of Deputies, to discuss a topic in an orderly manner, without debate or taking a final action on a resolution on the matter. It is used primarily when a deliberative assembly wishes to have a discussion on a particular topic.

How it will happen:

The Legislative Committee on Dispatch of Business will present a special order of business to the HOD in the same manner all special orders are presented. The HOD will review the procedure presented by Dispatch and the House will vote whether or not to use or to amend the Committee of the Whole procedure as proposed.

When it will happen:

During the legislative session on Wednesday, July 8, Dispatch will present the special order for consideration by the HOD.

If the special order is adopted, on Thursday afternoon, July 9, the HOD will meet for one hour in the first session of the Committee of the Whole during the regularly scheduled legislative time; and on Friday morning, July 10, the second session of the Committee of the Whole will meet for one hour during the regularly scheduled legislative session.

It is my belief that the House of Deputies will benefit by having an opportunity to discuss B033 apart from the context of legislative procedure. Many deputies have indicated their longing to discuss B033 together as a House. The HOD Legislative Committee on World Mission (#8) has indicated their work will be aided by this conversation in the HOD prior to the committee’s open hearing on the topic.

I look forward to our work, prayer and deepening relationship.

Please join me in daily thanksgiving for our ministry together, as it is and as it is yet to become. Please join me daily in asking the Holy Spirit to be present with us in all our deliberations, celebrations and conversations.

Peace,
Bonnie Anderson, D.D.
President, The House of Deputies

Kudos for Bonnie for creating this possibility! If the House of Deputies avails itself of the opportunity she has presented—I sincerely hope it will—it might be able to develop a consensus regarding what the effect of B033 has been, where the church should be going in the years ahead, and how the Convention can best point The Episcopal Church in that direction. Even if consensus proves elusive, the thinking of individual deputies should be clarified, which cannot but lead to better decision making when it comes time to consider particular resolutions.

In 2006, I was very concerned about how the General Convention of that year was going to deal with the challenge presented by the Windsor Report. In the introduction to a report I wrote for Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh, “What Should General Convention 2006 Do?,” I said the following:

The church’s proper response to events that followed General Convention 2003 needs to be considered in the context of those events and of longstanding movements in the Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion. Deputies should familiarize themselves with that history, which is documented and explicated elsewhere. Above all, the following questions must be kept in mind as resolutions are considered:

1. What problem are we solving?
2. How is any proposed resolution supposed to contribute to a solution?
3. What are the likely (and possibly even unlikely) negative consequences of any proposed resolution?

Discussion should be conducted in a spirit of generosity, of course, and with a bigger question always in mind: What is the Holy Spirit calling us to do at this time and place to further the mission of the Church?

These same considerations should be kept in mind, as, three years later, we continue to deal with what I believe is the Anglican Communion’s destructive interference with The Episcopal Church’s ability to pursue what it sees as its holy mission. Spending two hours focused on B033 will give the House of Deputies time to explore the nature of the circumstances in which we find ourselves and how we might change that situation for the better.

Christopher Wells and I reflected on how General Convention 2006 had dealt with Communion issues in a “Reader’s Viewpoint” essay for The Living Church titled “The Church Faces a Foreign Policy Challenge.” We suggested that dealing with the Anglican Communion was analogous to a country’s pursuing its foreign policy, except that, in the case of The Episcopal Church, a legislative body, rather than an executive, must play the leading role. In that essay, Christopher and I offered suggestions for how the General Convention might do a better job next time around. (We thought that an Anglican covenant might be up for discussion in 2009, but the existence of B033 and developments within the Communion in the past three years provide a similar challenge to our legislative assembly.) We listed a number of ideas we thought would be helpful should a commission be appointed to suggest legislative action. Among our suggestions were the following:

5. At convention, the committee [i.e., the legislative committee dealing with proposed resolutions] might consider holding hearings before the Houses of Bishops and the House of Deputies in joint session, concentrating on strategy, rather than on the minutiae of particular resolutions.
6. The legislative houses should discuss the strategy recommended (or strategies offered) by the commission and whether it is the one the convention really wants to adopt. Participants, having had ample time to respond to the commission’s report, will have been prepared for this.

Of course, the resolutions dealing with B033 are not being presented by a commission, but the basic advice we gave is still appropriate. Both houses of the General Convention should be concentrating on strategy, on the big picture of what we are trying to accomplish as a church. Bonnie Anderson’s initiative is making it more likely that the House of Deputies will do this. I hope the House of Bishops will do so as well. (As a smaller, more cohesive body, the House of Bishops is probably better equipped to focus on strategy, rather than simply on short-term tactics.)

As to what our church’s strategy should be, I offer another paper I wrote before the 2006 Convention as a useful resource. “Saving Anglicanism” was a plea to consider Anglicanism’s emphasis on common worship, rather than on particular doctrines, as a concept to be valued even over the fellowship of the Anglican Communion itself. Characterizing “traditional Anglicanism,” I said, “To put the matter into modern terms, the pragmatism of the [Elizabethan] Settlement had the effect of facilitating mission within the church and diverting English Christians from endless and irresolvable disputes over doctrine and morals. This did not, nor should it have, put an end to disputes.”

Unfortunately, in recent years, the Anglican Communion has engaged in endless and irresolvable disputes. Some, both within and outside The Episcopal Church, believe that these disputes must either be resolved definitively or those who disagree with them need to be forever exiled from the Communion fellowship. In the context of what I called traditional Anglicanism, this is a false choice. Enforcing a confessed uniform belief across the Communion and declaring that we will modify that belief only when a Communion consensus develops that it should be changed is a “solution” offered by those who believe that the church should never change and who profess—even in the light of overwhelming evidence to the contrary—that it never has.

But the Church must change if it is to survive, adapting its understanding and message so that it remains compelling in changed circumstances to modern people. I actually believe that lack of central authority in the Anglican Communion is one of its strengths, as the autonomy of individual churches provides the freedom to experiment with doctrine and liturgy without the entire Communion’s having to endorse it. (A loose Communion structure also gives churches unsympathetic to innovation credible deniability when confronted with complaints about innovations elsewhere in the communion.) As I said in “Saving Anglicanism,”

Is it not as likely that catastrophic conflict can be avoided—as it has been avoided for the past three centuries—not by getting more engaged in one another’s business, but by becoming more tolerant and less engaged? To interpret the current conflict in psychological terms, the Episcopal Church did not make traditionalists unhappy, they chose to be unhappy. They could have made a different choice. Perhaps the salvation of the Anglican Communion lies in less communication, less consultation, and less caring for one another.

This is really the only way forward that I can see if both the Anglican Communion and the integrity of the churches of the Communion are to be preserved.

I hope, then, that the General Convention will adopt a strategy that preserves the ability of The Episcopal Church to live out the Gospel as we understand God’s call to us in 21st-century America. This is a higher goal than preserving peace within the Anglican Communion or even than preserving the Anglican Communion itself.

Bonnie Anderson is making it possible for the House of Deputies to consider our church’s strategy in these troubled times. Whether that results in a view much like my own remains to be seen. The opportunity, however, should not be passed up.

Quick Takes for 6/24/2009

St. James asks for Supreme Court review

Earth Times reported today that St. James Anglican Church (the former St. James Episcopal Church, Newport Beach), was to file a petition for a writ of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court today, asking that court to overturn the California Supreme Court decision that awarded the St. James property to the Diocese of Los Angeles. The move was expected. I cannot see that the high court has much incentive to take this case, however. Readers seeking amusement can read the press release here, which outlines the argument of the petitioners.

ACNA “unites” Anglicans

I watched the Q&A at today’s press conference at the Inaugural Assembly of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA). (The event was available on the Web from AnglicanTV Ministries.) Much was being made by Bishops Duncan and Minns of the new church’s uniting, rather than dividing Anglicans. It takes chutzpah to make this claim. Yes, the new organization is bringing together various Anglican splinter groups, such as the Reformed Episcopal Church, but at least some of these groups are grasping desperately at a chance for Anglican respectability. Of course the “uniting” is only happening after most of the members of four dioceses “un-united” from The Episcopal Church. What are these people smoking?

As an aside, Bishop Minns objected to a reporter’s referring to ACNA as Ack-na, insisting that the full name, Anglican Church in North America be used. The real objection, I think, is that Ack-na sounds too much like acne, a coincidence about which I will say nothing more.

Via Media USA comments on ACNA

Via Media USA, which now has a shiny new Web site—see my post here—that makes it easier to post new material, has commented on the advent of ACNA. Recently ordained—by a real church—VMUSA facilitator Christopher Wilkins says the following:

We note with sadness the latest acts of schism by those who have left The Episcopal Church in search of another Anglican church home. Recognized only by those primates already tied to the ACNA through Episcopal Church parishes claimed by their provinces, this is still a place apart from the entire Anglican Communion. Whether founding a self-styled “Anglican Church in North America” and selecting a new archbishop will bring comfort to these people and renew their sense of purpose and mission, or whether it will continue to isolate them in the echo chamber of their own apartness, remains to be seen.

“In my Father's house,” said our Lord, “there are many rooms.” There has always been room in The Episcopal Church to welcome all who seek God, worship Christ, abide in the power of the Spirit, and know God’s name as Love, not Division. This, we are certain, will continue. What God may have in store for those who find ever-new ways to reject the company of their fellow Christians and fellow Anglicans we do not presume to judge.

You can find the statement here.

New Via Media USA Web Site

Via Media USA has a new Web site. You can view it at http://viamediausa.org.

Does anyone remember Via Media USA? It is the alliance of local groups of Episcopalians concerned about the commitment of their respective dioceses to The Episcopal Church. Most of these groups organized independently in 2003 and sent representatives to a meeting in 2004 in Atlanta, Georgia, at which Via Media USA was formed. A mission statement was written at that March meeting that remains the same to this day:

Via Media USA, an alliance of associations of laity and clergy, is committed to promoting and protecting the faith, unity, and vitality of The Episcopal Church as the American expression of Anglican tradition.

• Via Media USA strives to emulate Jesus Christ, respecting the dignity of every human being;
• Affirms the four principles of the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral—
  • the Nicene Creed as a sufficient statement of belief,
  • the Holy Scriptures as containing all things necessary to salvation,
  • the Sacraments of Baptism and Holy Eucharist,
  • and the Historic Episcopate;
• Acknowledges that Holy Scripture must be understood within the context of its origins and traditions of interpretation, as well as with the mediation of reason and the Holy Spirit;
• Nurtures greater understanding of Anglican tradition and Episcopal polity; and
• Celebrates its diverse understandings of matters outside the basic tenets of the faith as indicative of humanity’s struggle to understand God’s will for contemporary societies.

Via Media, the middle way, is not a compromise for the sake of peace, but a comprehension for the sake of truth.

As it happens, although Via Media USA has issued press releases and done other work that might be expected of an advocacy group within the church, it has probably been most useful for building communication links among Episcopalians in troubled dioceses. The work on the ground has largely been done by its component groups. In San Joaquin, Pittsburgh, and Fort Worth, the local group allied with Via Media USA has played a major role in helping the diocese reorganize after schism. Although Via Media USA leaders have been in touch with Episcopalians in Quincy for some time, that diocese did not have the benefit of a group in place when it voted for “realignment,” and, for this and other reasons, the Diocese of Quincy has had a harder time pulling itself together.

Via Media USA’s Web site was assembled hurriedly after the March 2004 organizational meeting, and the new site represents its first thorough makeover. The site uses a content management system (Drupal), which greatly simplifies maintenance and has facilitated a more transparent organization of material. I volunteered to develop an overall design for the site, but I found myself implementing the design as well. Although I built the site, learning Drupal as I went along, and although I am serving as Webmaster for now, I expect to be training others in how to add and modify content, including how to post on the new blog that is included as part of the site.

For the second time, Via Media USA will have a booth at the General Convention, and the site redesign was very much driven by a desire to create a more modern and attractive cyberface for the organization before the Convention convenes. (I just made up the word “cyberface.” I wonder if people will find it useful.) Much of the content from the old site has been migrated to the new. Some content has been deliberately dropped (or has become unavailable), but other content has been added. I expect more pages to be added in the coming days.

I hope that the new Web site will become an oft-consulted source for material related to the history, polity, and character of The Episcopal Church. The Resources section has been populated not only with material from Via Media USA and its component groups, but with other material useful for educating people about what we view as the true and proper nature of The Episcopal Church. This may be one of the best collections of materials useful in dioceses threatened with schism. Episcopalians concerned about our church’s relationship to the Anglican Communion would also do well to consult this collection.

The usefulness of Via Media Blog will need to be established. I hope that people from Via Media groups attending the General Convention will use it to offer their impressions of the Convention, but I have not yet tried to sign up any bloggers.

Do visit the new site. Comments and (especially) suggestions are welcome. Use the comment link at the left.

A Computer Science Perpective on the Stipulation

When I attended the court hearing in the Calvary lawsuit on May 27, I had not yet read a brief from the defendants that was submitted before the hearing but not posted on the court’s Web site until afterward. The title of that brief is “Defendants’ Pre-hearing Brief in Support of the Position That the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh’s Valid Withdrawal from The Episcopal Church Did Not Cause a Violation of the October 14, 2005 Stipulation and Order.” (That the withdrawal was valid has neither been determined nor argued yet.) Had I read this pleading, what took place in the courtroom might have been clearer, and my blog post on the event, “My Day in Court,” might have been marginally more insightful. (But perhaps not.)

In any case, the defendants (Robert Duncan, et al.) argue that the diocesan convention validly withdrew the diocese from The Episcopal Church and that, under those circumstances, the October 14, 2005, stipulation does not require any further action by the court. The defendants’ argument is aggressively and cleverly laid out in the aforementioned brief. I leave it for the reader’s amusement to analyze it.

The plaintiffs have not really offered their argument that the withdrawal from the diocese was not valid—my own argument on the issue can be read here—and they are, no doubt, hoping that doing so will be unnecessary. The Episcopal Church has asserted that a diocese cannot withdraw, but it has not offered its reasoning behind that claim either. There is probably a reluctance to make such an argument, as the church holds that the First Amendment gives it the right to interpret its own rules without interference by the state. In its most recent brief. that argument is made explicitly. (My favorite sentence from that argument: “But even so, it is doubtful whether defendants—persons who have voluntarily removed themselves from The Episcopal Church—have any rightful say about whom or what the Church decides to recognize as its constituent parts, or the officers and members thereof, or how the Church chooses to do so.”)

At the May 27 hearing, the plaintiffs tried to show how both sides were understanding the stipulation when it was signed. Calvary’s attorney, Walter DeForest, testified that he would have made no agreement that did not protect diocesan property for The Episcopal Church and that the possibility of there being two dioceses in Pittsburgh at some point had indeed been considered. The defendants’ attorney, John Lewis, on the other hand, argued that intention makes no difference; the words say what they say, and he obviously thinks they say something different from what the plaintiffs get from it. (There was and is some legal jockeying going on here as to the admissibility of evidence about the context of the stipulation, but Judge James seemed to give the plaintiffs wide latitude. See, for example, the Wikipedia article on the parol evidence rule, which I do not claim to understand.)

Anyway, only paragraph 1 of the stipulation is at issue right now:

Property, whether real or personal (hereinafter “Property”), held or administered by the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh of the Episcopal Church of the United States of America (hereinafter “Diocese”) for the beneficial use of the parishes and institutions of the Diocese, shall continue to be so held or administered by the Diocese regardless of whether some or even a majority of the parishes in the Diocese might decide not to remain in the Episcopal Church of the United States of America. For purposes of this paragraph, Property as to which title is legitimately held in the name of a parish of the Diocese shall not be deemed Property held or administered by the Diocese.

I want to set aside the legal arguments that have been made to this point and offer my own observation on the stipulation, an observation that is a product of my computer science background. (The logic and linguistics education I received at Georgia Tech comes in handy on unexpected occasions.) I don’t know if my observation will be one that no one else has made, but my framing of it may be new. As an aside, permit me to note that I have always though the stipulation was oddly phrased, but unnatural language is frequently the result of complex negotiations.

A concept that arises in the processing of programming languages for computers is that of binding, the association of identifiers (i.e., variable names) and storage locations where values, which are the “meanings” of identifiers, are stored. Binding may be done early (“static binding”) or late (“dynamic binding”), either before the program is run or during its actual execution. The time of binding can affect the semantics of the program (i.e., what the program actually does). Happily, one need not actually understand binding to understand the point I want to make below.

As explained in court by the chancellor of the Episcopal Church diocese, Andy Roman, “Diocese” is a “defined term” in the stipulation. Everywhere “Diocese” occurs in the stipulation, one should read “Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh of the Episcopal Church of the United States of America.” Roman actually went through the exercise of reading paragraph 1 this way at the hearing. In reading the stipulation this way, he was applying late binding to the text; when we read the text now this way, diocesan property must be held by “the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh of the Episcopal Church of the United States of America.” Since Duncan’s “diocese” is not in The Episcopal Church, this phrase cannot refer to that entity. In this method of understanding paragraph 1, the defined term is processed through textual substitution.

On the other hand, one might handle “Diocese” using early or static binding. In this way of interpreting the text, the phrase “the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh of the Episcopal Church of the United States of America” is used to identify an entity, the pre-schism diocese headed by Bishop Robert Duncan. “Diocese” is simply a variable name whose value (meaning) is fixed once and for all to be a particular organization. Even if the nature of that organization changes—it could cease to be a part of The Episcopal Church, for example—“Diocese” continues to refer to it. In this interpretation, Duncan’s “diocese” could continue to hold diocesan property post-schism.

Defendants have also focused on the phrase “shall continue to be so held or administered by the Diocese,” arguing that, if withdrawal were proper, only their entity could “continue” doing anything, since the church would have had to create a “new” Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh. This is a bit of a problem for the late-binding interpretation of the plaintiffs, but likely not an insurmountable one. Under that scheme, the text now asserts that property shall continue to be held or administered by the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh of the Episcopal Church of the United States of America. If withdrawal were proper, the property holder must be part of The Episcopal Church, but it need not be the pre-schism diocese. The property can continue to be held by such an entity (i.e., held by such an entity at every moment in time) if The Episcopal Church designates such an entity from the moment of schism, which it has essentially done. That is, the property is always being held by an Episcopal Church diocese, but not always by the same one.

The foregoing is not meant to be a definitive legal argument, but only an interesting way of looking at the dispute about what paragraph 1 of the stipulation means. (It might also be a lesson to anyone who uses defined terms in an agreement: multiple interpretations might be tenable.) One way or another, I believe that the right of the church to interpret its own rules is the concept that eventually will award property to the Episcopal Church’s Diocese of Pittsburgh. It may take us a while to get there, however.

Who Will the General Convention Be Listening To?

Last night, at the regular June meeting of Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh, we showed Voices of Witness Africa. Voices is a documentary produced by Cynthia Black and Katie Sherrod for Claiming the Blessing. As explained in a press release from the Chicago Consultation, the documentary “interviews gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Africans about their lives and their relationships with God and the church.” It is intended to advance the process of listening to members of the GLBT community, which the Anglican Communion has been quick to advocate but slow to carry out. According to the press release, not only has the video been sent to those who will be attending the Episcopal Church’s General Convention next month, but it has also been sent to all bishops of the Anglican Communion.

After watching Voices of Witness Africa, we discussed what we had seen and speculated on why it was being sent to General Convention deputies. Many were struck by the similarity of the experiences related in Voices to those of GLBT people in the West. What was not similar, however, was the oppression and violence suffered by the Africans, often with the collusion of the church. (One person interviewed described the African situation as like that of the U.S. 58 years ago, though this may have minimized the intensity of the hostility in her home country.)

Whatever the reasons for producing and distributing Voices at this time—it is not difficult to imagine why deputies received DVDs before leaving for Anaheim—I came away from last night’s meeting with one overriding thought. Yet again, the General Convention will have to deal, directly or indirectly, with our relationship to the Anglican Communion. In 2006, against our collective better judgment I daresay, we pandered to the homophobic sensibilities of African archbishops. Voices of Witness Africa shows, in a very graphic way, other Africans perhaps more deserving of our concern. Will we have faithful GLBT people in mind in Anaheim when we make decisions for The Episcopal Church, or will we once again try to placate their oppressors?

Saving Anglicanism

In my last post, I made reference to a paper I wrote in anticipation of the last General Convention of The Episcopal Church. “Saving Anglicanism,” a 15-page essay, was dated May 31, 2006. More information about the paper and a related one, “What Should General Convention Do?,” can be found here. The context for both papers was the need for The Episcopal Church to respond to the challenges of the Windsor Report.

My citation of “Saving Anglicanism” led to my rereading the essay. (It also led to my correcting two typographical errors I had hitherto missed .) Although The Episcopal Church finds itself in a slightly different position with respect to the Anglican Communion as we approach the 76th General Convention, that situation has much in common with the situation just before the 75th General Convention. My advice to the church today would not be much different from that I put forth in “Saving Anglicanism,” save for that slight difference in context.

It is for this reason that I reproduce below the final section of “Saving Anglicanism,” titled “The Decision,” below. I hope that deputies to the governing body of The Episcopal Church will read and think about what I had to say in 2006.

Further commentary from me seems unnecessary, although I will add that the 76th General Convention must effectively nullify B033 and should authorize the blessing of same-sex unions and begin the process of drawing up an official liturgy for the purpose.

The breadth, length, and complexity of the resolutions proposed by the Special Commission surprised many. Clearly, the group methodically enumerated all that had been asked of the Episcopal Church and considered some related matters as well. It then acted with the predictability that we have seen from the rest of the Communion in the past three years to fashion proposals intended to mollify the church’s detractors without conceding anything more than was seen to be necessary. A complete analysis of the resolutions themselves is beyond our scope, but useful commentaries are available elsewhere.

Passing the 11 resolutions or a set of resolutions not too different from them may buy more time, but one has to question the purpose in so doing. Unless the Anglican Communion gets off its current path, its character will be destroyed and the theological essence of Anglicanism, the comprehension of Richard Hooker, will be extinguished. Our object, then, despite what the militant traditionalists tell us, must first be to save Anglicanism, not to save the Anglican Communion, which we cannot allow to become an object of idolatrous veneration. Recent history suggests that our response in typical Anglican rhetoric—the subtle, nuanced, ambiguous language that has allowed us to, as the traditionalists say, “fudge” so often in the past—will, in the current climate, be misinterpreted, ridiculed, and used to stage new attacks on our church. Perhaps the decision of General Convention will be that this is a chance we must take, but it is not our only option.

We should consider making a more principled, straightforward, and courageous response. We should consider the novel ideal of proclaiming the Gospel as we understand it and defending the approach to theology that most theologians in our church actually use. In simple, clear sentences we could express our sorrow for the hurt that others have experienced and express our sincere desire to remain in communion with all our sister provinces. We could remind others of Bishop Desmond Tutu’s explanation for how we have always maintained communion—“we meet”—and insist that removing the Episcopal Church or its representatives from Communion discussion is hardly characteristic of the Anglican way. Before the Communion creates more rules, we could insist that existing ones be observed. Before we cede authority to others, we could insist that those to whom we have ceded no authority refrain from intimidation. And we could declare that that name-calling, misrepresentation, and subversion are unbecoming a Christian and unacceptable in a bishop.

We could, in other words, insist that we have as much right to make claims on the Communion as it does on the Episcopal Church. Most importantly, however, we could declare our commitment to save Anglicanism at all costs and to save the Anglican Communion if at all possible.

Episcopal versus Anglican

Now that Bishop John-David Schofield has left the Episcopal Church to form an Anglican diocese, that’s changed.

— The Fresno Bee

Journalists have found it convenient in stories about the Diocese of San Joaquin and others involving departures from our church to distinguish between “Episcopal” and “Anglican.” This is a terminology encouraged by the traditionalist malcontents and accepted, perhaps reluctantly as a necessary expedient, by Episcopalian leaders. We should discourage this deceptive distinction.

I understand the journalist’s frustration with what to call which organization. Not only have I discussed this with local journalists, but I have experienced the frustration keenly myself. When Bishop Robert Duncan and his minions left The Episcopal Church last October, Duncan had already registered a corporation named “Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh” with the Pennsylvania Department of State. ( The diocese had been unincorporated. See “Which Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh?”) Both the Episcopal Church diocese and the Duncan group offered Web sites branded “Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh.” (The Duncan site prefixed the name with “The.”) How was a journalist—or an Episcopalian, for that matter—to distinguish the two? (Duncan’s site is now branded “The Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh (Anglican),” by the way.)

There are, of course, two basic meanings for “Anglican” in an ecclesiastical context. On one hand, it often means a church (or, possibly, diocese) in the Anglican Communion. With the recent talk of each of the “instruments of communion” being able to acknowledge churches independently, the notion of membership in the Anglican Communion is becoming increasingly fuzzy. What still seems to count, however, is recognition as a member body by the Archbishop of Canterbury. (See the Communion’s “Provincial Directory.”)

On the other hand, there is the more generic notion of “Anglican,” indicating a church whose roots can be traced back to the Church of England and that has certain characteristics typical of such churches. Unfortunately, not everyone agrees about what is characteristically Anglican, and adoption of an Anglican covenant could make even the Anglican Communion seem less “Anglican.” Anglicans Online has an extensive list of churches considering themselves Anglican but that are not members of the Anglican Communion.

Robert Duncan’s or John-David Schofield’s or Jack Iker’s claiming Anglicanism for his band of departing adherents has been justified as a move to achieve a connection to Canterbury and inclusion in the Anglican Communion. The diocese of Pittsburgh or San Joaquin or Forth Worth (or Quincy), however, was already in the Anglican Communion by virtue of being a part—an inseparable part, I would argue—of The Episcopal Church. The departure of members of those dioceses for a more tenuous connection to Canterbury through an irregular arrangement with the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone is surely ironic. In any case, although “The Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh (Anglican)” is certainly Anglican in some generic sense, its claim to be a part of the Anglican Communion is hardly strengthened by its departure from The Episcopal Church. And there would be no need for anxiety about being outside the Anglican Communion were not the likes of Robert Duncan working actively to have The Episcopal Church thrown out of it! (This is akin to rats abandoning a sinking ship after having eaten a hole through its bottom.)

The Episcopal Church’s Diocese of Pittsburgh has at least as much right to call itself “Anglican” as does its Southern Cone rival, and it should not cede the term to the schismatics. Currently, the banner of the Episcopal Church diocese reads:

Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh

of The Episcopal Church in the United States

The diocese should append a tag line:

A Diocese of the Anglican Communion

Arguably, the other “diocese” in town cannot make such a claim.

And how should journalists distinguish the “dioceses”? I think

The Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh (Anglican)

and

The Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh (“Anglican”)

would do the trick.

Postscript. For more of my thoughts on the importance of being Anglican, see my 2006 paper, “Saving Anglicanism.”

My Day in Court

Today, I attended a hearing before Judge Joseph James on the October 14, 2005, stipulation in the Calvary lawsuit against deposed bishop Robert Duncan and other former officers of the Diocese of Pittsburgh. The event had been variously portrayed, but Judge James characterized it as being about the petition from the plaintiffs to enforce the stipulation. Soon after he took the bench, just after 10 o’clock, he said that the hearing was to determine whether the stipulation had been violated and needs to be enforced. At issue was only the meaning of paragraph 1 of the settlement document:

Property, whether real or personal (hereinafter “Property”), held or administered by the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh of the Episcopal Church of the United States of America (hereinafter “Diocese”) for the beneficial use of the parishes and institutions of the Diocese, shall continue to be so held or administered by the Diocese regardless of whether some or even a majority of the parishes in the Diocese might decide not to remain in the Episcopal Church of the United States of America. For purposes of this paragraph, Property as to which title is legitimately held in the name of a parish of the Diocese shall not be deemed Property held or administered by the Diocese.

Diocese of Pittsburgh chancellor Andy Roman represented the plaintiffs, and John Lewis represented the defendants, none of whom appeared to be in the courtroom.

Calvary Church and the Diocese of Pittsburgh were amply represented among the small group of spectators. At one point, I thought I saw Bishop Duncan walking down the hallway to the courtroom, but it turned out that I had seen John Lewis, someone I had never met but who bears a striking resemblance to Duncan from certain angles. (I thought this rather remarkable and mused over whether Duncan had picked a lawyer from a book of 8x10 glossies. “That one!” I imagined him saying, as he pointed to the photo of Lewis. “He looks so trustworthy!” But I digress.)

In particular, what was not being litigated was whether Duncan and his supporters had rightfully removed the diocese from The Episcopal Church. During the hearing, Lewis made it clear that he thought the point at issue was the meaning of the stipulation under the assumption that the withdrawal was proper. Roman, on the other hand, was arguing for a particular interpretation of paragraph 1 without regard to the propriety of withdrawal. Although this seems like a broader issue, since the defense has admitted that it loses the case if withdrawal was not proper, the only interesting case to consider is the one in which the withdrawal was valid. If it were, however, the defendants might still lose.

The hearing began with Roman announcing a schedule for post-hearing briefs that had been agreed to by attorneys for both plaintiffs and defendants. This was a depressing beginning; the last deadline is July 9. Judge James, also, seemed none too happy. He remarked on the quantity of reading necessitated by the Calvary case and said that he “may have to get more Murine” for his eyes. Roman then proceeded to present the case for the plaintiffs.

I don’t frequent courtrooms, and what came next was something I had not been prepared for by watching episodes of Perry Mason. Neither Roman nor Lewis presented a coherent theory of the case to the judge. Instead, they made (or tried to make) various points, presumably relying on pre- and post-hearing briefs to construct a complete story for the court.

The nearly two-hour morning session of the hearing was taken up with the testimony of Walter DeForest, the attorney for Calvary Church who filed the suit against diocesan leaders in 2003. Lewis immediately objected to Roman’s calling DeForest, but the judge allowed it after Roman said that DeForest was not there to give his legal opinion but to provide context regarding the settlement reached in 2005.

Roman introduced 16 exhibits (documents) and asked DeForest to put each of them in context. Lewis objected to the introduction of each exhibit, but he only managed to convince the judge to exclude one of them. The exhibits were mostly documents generated by one party or the other in the process of negotiating the October 2005 stipulation. The primary negotiators were DeForest himself, for the plaintiffs, and Wilbur “Joe” Otto and Wicks Stevens for the defendants. What was established in the examination of DeForest primarily was that

1. Negotiation of the stipulation began at a time when discovery had produced a good number of documents from the defendants and, in the normal course of litigation, the taking of depositions would follow. (The implication seemed to be that the defendants wanted to avoid being deposed.)
2. A great deal of time was spent clarifying “Diocese” in the stipulation. (I learned that capitalizing such a word or phrase that is defined in the document makes it a “defined term,” whose meaning is always that which has been stipulated explicitly. In other words, capitalization, which might not be required grammatically, can be legally significant.) DeForest explained that he did not want any later confusion or dispute over what diocese was being referred to. (Obviously, he was not completely successful in this regard.)
   
3. DeForest always had the objective of maintaining diocesan property within The Episcopal Church and would not have agreed to a settlement that did not achieve that objective.
4. Otto agreed to keeping the diocesan property with the Episcopal Church diocese and did not object when the stipulation was characterized as doing so.

I will spare you details of the discussion of each of the 16 exhibits. After a lunch break, Roman quickly finished his questioning of DeForest. Before cross-examination began, Roman announced that exhibits 17–41 were also being offered to the court without objection by the defense as to their authenticity. More on these below.

When Lewis began questioning DeForest, the conversation became a bit testy. DeForest was obviously being careful about what he said, and I think he was genuinely perplexed at times as to what Lewis was getting at. Roman occasionally objected, and even Judge James seemed surprised by some of the questions. Lewis asked, for example, if DeForest intended the “Diocese” of the stipulation to be a “constituent part” of The Episcopal Church and whether “Diocese” could refer to the same diocese or a new diocese. At one point, DeForest responded that a Lewis question “doesn’t make sense to me.” Lewis asked if DeForest saw a difference between “disaffiliating” and “withdrawing.”

Lewis introduced an exhibit, and he asked DeForest to identify it. It was apparently a document from Otto, involving the negotiations about the stipulation, but DeForest could not identify it and said that no copy of the document had shown up in the search of his files. (The first set of exhibits were largely or completely from DeForest’s files.) Lewis was trying to make a point here, but it is not clear what it was. In the end, he said he would get an affidavit from Otto that the document had been sent to DeForest. What this was about proved to be the big mystery of the day.

In any case, cross-examination of DeForest ended without any clarity as to what Lewis was trying to accomplish.

Roman then called Jacqueline Koscelnik, a partner of DeForest who had been sequestered during her partner’s testimony. Her testimony largely provided minor details about the stipulation negotiation; her role in meetings was, according to her testimony, mostly as a witness. One particularly interesting fact did come out in her direct examination, however. There was, at one time, a plaintiff request for an accounting of Bishop Duncan’s time, as there was a concern that diocesan funds were being used to support the Anglican Communion Network. According to Koscelnik, however, the defendants would not agree to this.

Lewis’s cross-examination of Koscelnik was brief. He was mainly concerned with the creation of a “new” Episcopal diocese and what would happen if there stopped being an Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh in The Episcopal Church.

After a brief recess, Roman gave copies of the remaining exhibits to Judge James, and the attorneys quibbled over the relevance of particular documents. During this time, the judge observed that Roman never referred to the Southern Cone group as a “diocese,” and Lewis noted that Mary Kostel and David Beers, attorneys representing The Episcopal Church and sitting silently at the plaintiffs’ table, could never admit that a diocese can withdraw because of pending litigation elsewhere. Roman seemed to have a variety of objectives in bringing in the final set of exhibits, most of which were allowed by the judge, some with questions being raised by the judge or by Lewis as to their relevance. Because many of the exhibits were not clearly identified orally, some of the discussion was hard for spectators to follow.

One concern of the defense became clear. Lewis does not want a letter from the Presiding Bishop to end the discussion as to who represents the “Diocese” of the stipulation. (Roman indicated that some of the exhibits were intended to establish the legitimacy of his client.) Eventually, Kostel, who apparently could maintain silence no longer, stood up to say that Lewis had no standing to argue about Episcopal Church polity, a point reiterated by Roman as well near the end of the day.

The hearing ended with Lewis “conceding” several points and an agreement that the two sides would indicate to the court previous briefs they believed relevant to the matter at hand by Monday, June 1. (I was relieved when the end came, as Judge James had suggested earlier that the hearing might go on for three days. I had expected it to take only one morning!)

The plaintiff position has always been clear: A diocese cannot leave the church; the diocese recognized by The Episcopal Church is the continuation of the pre-October 4, 2008, diocese; and that is the “Diocese” of the stipulation. The defendants dispute all three points, and they know they cannot prevail without winning their point on the first proposition. Their argument seems to be that (1) they withdrew properly from The Episcopal Church, leaving the church without a Pittsburgh diocese; a “new” Pittsburgh diocese therefore needed to be created; the creation of a new diocese requires action by the General Convention, which has obviously not occurred; and the only entity that could “continue” to hold diocesan property is Duncan’s.

Although Roman is trying to show that the Presiding Bishop and Executive Council recognize his client as the legitimate and continuing Diocese of Pittsburgh, Lewis is claiming that legitimation comes only from the General Convention. Of course, Roman will soon be able to argue that deputies from his client have been admitted as members of the 2009 General Convention, which will thereby recognize the diocese, at least implicitly. Here’s an idea, however: Why not introduce a resolution in the General Convention to the effect that the Convention recognizes the Diocese of Pittsburgh as the legitimate and continuing diocese, for which no additional “admission” to union with the General Convention is necessary. Such a resolution should be passable in 15 minutes or so in Anaheim. It would seriously undercut Lewis’s argument and would be timely indeed.