More on the Anglican Covenant Resolution

Scott Gunn, who is planning to analyze every resolution in the 2015 Blue Book on his blog, Seven whole days, got around to Resolution A040 two days ago. This, of course, is the resolution responding to the Anglican Covenant, about which I have written recently. (See “End of the Line for the Covenant at the General Convention” and “Further Thoughts on the Anglican Covenant and the General Convention.”)

In “Tangled Up in Blue: Executive Redux,” Gunn discusses resolutions originating in Executive Council committees. After declaring the probable vote on Resolution A022 through Resolution A035 to be negative, he predicts a positive vote on A040.

It is important to note here that Gunn has long favored a lukewarm response to the Covenant, neither rejecting it nor accepting it (or all of it, in any case). In a 2012 post before the 77th General Convention, he wrote in “Resolutely Reading: Anglican Covenant responses”

I don’t much like the way the Covenant goes about its project, but I think it would be a mistake to reject the entire enterprise without at least some appreciation for parts of it.

It is not completely surprising, therefore, that he is positively disposed to A040, which affirms “our common identity and membership in the Anglican Communion as expressed in the preamble and first three sections of the Anglican Communion Covenant.” Even Gunn admits, however, that the resolution “treads very close to failing on grounds of being too commendy or affirmy.”

I won’t revisit why I dislike the formulation of lukewarm acceptance of parts of the Covenant—see “Further Thoughts on the Anglican Covenant and the General Convention”—but I do find the resolution too commendy or affirmy, and it is worth saying why.

One might argue that, short of actually “adopting” the Covenant, and particularly without saying anything about the disciplinary Section Four, The Episcopal Church will not have committed itself to anything of substance. In any rational world, that would be true, but the Anglican Communion is not such a world.

In the Anglican Communion, merely writing something down, even if the words are never subjected to an approval process, can find those words elevated to holy writ by those who find doing so useful. Thus, the Virginia Report and the Windsor Report, which are only reports never adopted by any Anglican body, are regularly quoted as definitive statements of Anglican identity. And most notoriously, the 1998 Lambeth Conference Resolution I.10, on human sexuality, is repeatedly cited as articulating Anglican Communion policy. Resolution I.10 was adopted by the assembled bishops of the Communion, of course, but Lambeth Conference resolutions have never been considered to be other than the opinion of the assembled bishops at the time.


Because of the Communion tendency to view as official anything that finds its way into print, I am concerned that saying anything positive about particular parts of the Anglican Covenant will be taken as an endorsement of propositions that we will be expected to support wholeheartedly in the future or which will be thrown in our face for past infractions. (If “the Holy Scriptures” are “the rule and ultimate standard of faith,” how can we bless same-sex unions, which, at least to some Communion churches, clearly violates scriptural norms and amounts to endorsing sin?) For this reason, I believe that any General Convention resolution concerning the Anglican Covenant must not suggest that we agree with any part of the Covenant.

I hope that the General Convention will adopt something like my amended resolution or something even stronger.

On Electing Bishops

In her sermon yesterday at General Theological Seminary, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts-Schori said, “We can’t go on choosing leaders ‘the way we’ve always done it.’” There certainly is widespread concern that we may not always do a good job of choosing bishops, and I suspect this is at least in part what the Presiding Bishop was thinking about. Even for those who have not been particularly concerned about our episcopal selection process, the crash-and-burn end of Heather Cook’s ecclesiastical career has been something of a wake up call.

In all likelihood, the General Convention will have something to say about the way we elect bishops, and it will probably throw money at the problem. In Resolution A002, the Task Force for Reimagining The Episcopal Church proposes to spend $100,000 on a task force to recommend “a new process for discernment, formation, search, and election of bishops in The Episcopal Church.” The Episcopal Resurrection folks have offered a better thought-out proposal that calls for a task force that “will study the election, appointment, roles, and responsibilities of the Episcopate, including the use of Bishops Diocesan, Bishops Coadjutor, Bishops Suffragan, Provisional Bishops, Missionary Bishops, and Assistant Bishops in this Church.” This resolution carries a price tag of $150,000.

Admittedly, both the TREC and Episcopal Resurrection proposals involve more than just examining the episcopal selection process, but I am skeptical about how much study is needed. There is already a good deal of commonality in the search process from diocese to diocese—there may even be too much—and at least some of the variation arises from different views of what is needed in a bishop at particular times and places. The process can never be perfect because what is needed can never be precisely defined, the talents of candidates likewise cannot be exactly calculated, and, however, those properties are defined, there is never a perfect match. I believe that if dioceses relied less of consultants to tell them what to do and experimented a bit, letting the wider church know how things worked out, we might gradually improve the way we select out bishops. (There is a need for networking here.)

Of course, we didn’t need the example of Heather Cook to tell us that the episcopal selection process can run off the rails. Mark Lawrence provided an equally effective example, as did Robert Duncan and John-David Schofield. There are two most important defenses against selecting the wrong bishop are (1) transparency and (2) the consent process.

Cook may never have been chosen bishop had her history of alcoholism been known by the people who chose her. Likewise, Duncan was thought unqualified for quite specific reasons by the search committee. For that reason, he was not nominated by the committee. When he was nominated from the floor—Pittsburgh has learned never to allow that again—no words of warning were heard from the search committee. Candidates for bishop should expect that their lives will be open books and for their qualifications to be debated by convention deputies. If Candidates feel the need to hide something in that past (or present, for that matter), they should be asked to be excused from the search process. Sunshine is the best disinfectant.

The need to obtain consents from the wider church is a safety mechanism in cases where a diocese has made a bad decision. The consent process prevented Kevin Thew Forrester from becoming Bishop of Northern Michigan. His involvement with Buddhism gave people the willies. He might have made a good bishop, but perhaps not. Why should the church take a chance? Mark Lawrence, on the other hand, represented a clear and present danger to the church. He failed to receive sufficient consents once. Unfortunately, Episcopalians’ pathological niceness resulted in his obtaining the required consents when the Diocese of South Carolina elected him a second time from a candidate pool of one. The church knew what to do, but it didn’t have the will to do it. A task force won’t fix that.

Perhaps some study of bishops and their qualifications is needed. I believe that the way we elect bishops, however, is not so bad. We don’t need to abandon what we are doing now, but it would help if we experimented a bit and we became more of a learning organization that could improve our process by analyzing both our successes and our failures.

In Praise of Provinces

Episcopal Resurrection has proposed that The Episcopal Church eliminate provinces, a task that, as it turns out, requires a lot of changes to the church’s canons. The authors of the Episcopal Resurrection Web site argue that

This layer of denominational structure serves little purpose today other than to ensure geographic diversity on certain committees. … This change will free up resources currently spent on maintaining an outmoded structural model.

They also argue that eliminating provinces will allow certain bodies that now require representatives from provinces, such as the Joint Nominating Committee for the Presiding Bishop, to be made smaller. They confidently assert that “we can ensure continued geographic diversity without rigid lines.”

I am skeptical of these largely unsupported claims. I don’t believe the existence of provinces constitutes a significant drain on church resources, and promises to achieve geographic diversity are not completely credible where there is no mechanism to assure it. Moreover, the existence of provincial groupings does not preclude dioceses in different provinces from working together for some particular purpose. The Dioceses of Pittsburgh and Northwestern Pennsylvania—the dioceses were once one—have consulted about possible efficiencies that might result from working together.

Rather than making an abstract argument for the existence of provinces, I want to make an argument from personal experience.

Province III Logo

As early as 2003, Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh (PEP) began seeking assistance and advice from 815—the general church was regularly referred to as 815 back then—as Bishop Robert Duncan’s actions seemed increasingly schismatic. PEP believed that there was sufficient evidence to bring a presentment against Pittsburgh’s bishop, but we were told that the bishops of the church would never act against a colleague. In short, we received no encouragement or assistance. (Actually, this is not completely true. We received some sub rosa assistance from sympathetic people in New York.)  Three years later, when Duncan supported a resolution that purported to withdraw from Province III, PEP reached out to the province, representatives of which attended a PEP meeting to brief members on the operations of the province. (The diocese had not been taking an active part in Province III for some time.) As Duncan’s actions became increasing alarming, PEP members began meeting with Maryland bishop and president of Province III Bob Ihloff at locations outside of the Pittsburgh diocese. Ihloff was more effective at getting attention from 815 than PEP had been, and the meetings were later expanded to include non-PEP Episcopalians and legal representatives of the Presiding Bishop. By October 2008, when the diocese actually split, Episcopalians were ready to move on, both to rebuild an Episcopal diocese and to carry on the legal fight. Of course, the lawsuit filed by Calvary Church in 2006 was instrumental in retrieving millions of dollars of property from the breakaway group, but 815 had opposed Calvary’s move at first. Province III helped bring everyone together when unity was needed most.

In the time leading up to the diocesan split, informal representatives of Pittsburgh were warmly welcomed at Province III events. Generally, our connection to the province helped maintain an emotional connection to the wider church that would have been difficult to maintain with the more distant Episcopal Church Center. Even had my diocese been a “normal” one, the provincial connection would have helped counteract the sense of isolation and independence that so easily develops at the diocesan level.

Province III has sponsored a number of useful programs, but, perhaps most useful, is the provincial synod, particularly in years in which the General Convention meets. (You can visit the Province III Web site here.) This year, for example, attendees were briefed on issues to come before the General Convention in a meeting attended by the Presiding Bishop and other church leaders. Such an event is more easily staged by an organization with an ongoing existence than by an ad hoc group, as would be necessary in the absence of the provincial system.

Finally, it is worth noting that other organizations have taken advantage of the provincial organization to segment the work of their own groups. Episcopal Relief & Development and Daughters of the King both rely on a provincial structure.

For these and other reasons I hope that the General Convention will reject the call to eliminate provinces within The Episcopal Church. I suspect that, if General Convention does eliminate provinces, some provinces may even continue to exist informally. In any case, if anything is going to save our church, it isn’t going to be the elimination of provinces.

Another View of Reimagining the Church

In a surprise development, a new Web site made its debut on May 14, 2015, Ascension Day. The Web site is Episcopal Resurrection: Calling the 78th General Convention to Proclaim Resurrection. The site includes a memorial, a kind of letter to the church, and a set of proposed resolutions for the upcoming General Convention. The About page of the site explains the origin of the site:

At the 77th General Convention in Indianapolis, several Episcopalians gathered to encourage prayer at the heart of General Convention. That gathering resulted in the Acts 8 Moment, a movement that is devoted to fostering prayer within and for the church.

The Acts 8 Moment is about prayer, not legislation. Still, some of us who grew to know each other in this effort wanted to work together to encourage our church to recommit to spiritual disciplines, to find its life in Jesus. We gathered at the Bexley Seabury campus in Bexley, Ohio in April 2015. There we drafted A Memorial to the Church along with some enabling resolutions, ways in which the General Convention can incarnate a vision of a renewed and revitalized Episcopal Church. We have also asked a number of people to sign on to the Memorial, and you can add your signature too, by emailing endorse@episcopalresurrection.org. Signing the Memorial does not necessarily mean that you agree with the resolutions, just that you share the vision of the Memorial.

Those of us who have worked on these materials offer them to the church in the hope that they will spur conversation and prayer. Our hope is that our church can be ever more effective in proclaiming resurrection and in sharing the riches of God’s grace with the world.

Susan Brown Snook
Tom Ferguson
Scott Gunn
Frank Logue
Brendan O’Sullivan-Hale
Steve Pankey
Adam Trambley

Dean Tom Ferguson, one of the authors, has written about what this group has done on his blog, which is worth reading. This new Web site contains a lot of material, and I am not yet prepared to say much about it. My overall impression, however, is much the same as that offered as a comment on Dean Ferguson’s blog by the Rev. Eric Funston:

The real difference between this memorial and the TREC report and recommendations is that this is a new vision of mission for the church, whereas what TREC produced is management reorganization. A friend has characterized the Memorial as an attempt to design a new ship for new seas; what TREC produced is a plan for rearranging the deck chairs on the old ship. I have signed onto this as an alternate deputy sponsor; I cannot support the TREC material.

Of course, the authors of this Web site were not limited by the charge to the Task Force for Reimagining The Episcopal Church (TREC). They were really free the reimagine the church as a whole.

I am impressed that this small group of Episcopalians was able to put together this well-thought-out material in what appears to be a very short period. Suddenly, deputies to the General Convention will find that the resolutions of TREC are not the only game in town. This should be interesting.

The authors of Episcopal Resurrection have put their memorial and resolutions in a PDF file that readers of the Web site could easily miss. It is available here. That file is almost helpful. It lacks internal links to facilitate navigation, is missing one heading, orders the material in manner that some may consider unhelpful, and does not contain the material on the About page. Readers may prefer to read my own edited version of this file, which contains bookmarks that provide a virtual table of contents and the About material. You can find that here.

I expect to say more about the Episcopal Resurrection material soon.

Further Thoughts on the Anglican Covenant and the General Convention

In an earlier post, I suggested that Resolution A040: Affirm Response to the Anglican Covenant Process proposed to the 78th General Convention this summer was less than ideal but would probably be adequate to get the Covenant off the church’s plate without doing too much damage. In this essay, I want to explain what I don’t like about A040 and how I would like to see it fixed.

Here is the resolution recommended by the Executive Council task force charged with monitoring the Anglican Covenant:

A040: Affirm Response to the Anglican Covenant Process

Resolved, the House of _____ concurring, That the 78th General Convention of The Episcopal Church affirm our common identity and membership in the Anglican Communion as expressed in the preamble and first three sections of the Anglican Communion Covenant; and be it further

Resolved, That the 78th General Convention direct The Episcopal Church's members of the Anglican Consultative Council to express our appreciation to the 16th meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC16, Lusaka 2016) for the gift of inter-Anglican conversation and mutuality in God's mission engendered by the Anglican Communion Covenant process.

Explanation
Pursuant to the charge given the B005 Task Force, we monitored Anglican and ACC activities regarding the Anglican Covenant process and believe this resolution to respond appropriately to the current status of this process in Anglicanism generally and the ACC specifically. This resolution has no budgetary implications.

My guess is that the task force did not think deeply about what it was going to propose to the General Convention. Episcopalians generally have no use for the Anglican Covenant, and the postponement of a decision about it at the last General Convention was largely designed to avoid offending elements of the Anglican Communion until such time as ardor for the pact had largely run its course. I hope we have gotten to that point, but, despite the fact that many people have declared the Covenant dead, a trickle of adoptions by Anglican churches continues.

General Observations

The title of the resolution is odd. The resolution responds to the invitation to adopt the Anglican Covenant, and it expresses appreciation for the conversation about the Covenant. This fact justifies “Response to the Anglican Covenant Process,” I suppose, but what is the function of “Affirm”? What are we affirming? “Affirm” occurs in the first resolve, but that seems coincidental. Is the intention that we affirm our previous response, that is, our non-response of 2012? In any case, the second resolve is simply a piece of Anglican niceness meant to cushion the blow of the thanks-but-no-thanks first resolve.

The explanation for the resolution is amusing. It asserts that the resolution is appropriate, but it neglects to say why. Of course, everyone knows that we would adopt the Covenant when Hell froze over, and by not saying so, we avoid giving our detractors something else to complain about.

I hope that this resolution will be amended to delete “as expressed in the preamble and first three sections of the Anglican Communion Covenant.” Affirming “our common identity and membership in the Anglican Communion,” however, seems innocuous enough. I do not believe that the Preamble and first three sections of the Covenant do, in fact, express our common identity and Communion membership. The rest of this essay will be devoted to justifying that belief. I will try to ignore minor objections to the Covenant and to point out only major ones. You may want to read what follows with the Anglican Covenant nearby.

Covenant Details

If there is any affirming going on, it is our church’s endorsement (but not adoption) of the Preamble and the first three sections of the Covenant. What is not being affirmed is the Covenant Introduction and the enforcement-oriented fourth section. The Introduction is strange in that we are told that it must be published along with the Covenant, even though it is not part of it. The Introduction is a strained theological justification for what follows. The less said about it the better. I need hardly say much about Section Four, which is a thinly disguised club with with to discipline The Episcopal Church, the Anglican Church of Canada, and any other Communion church that dares to speak credibly to a modern audience.

Even if the references to the first three sections of the Covenant are retained in Resolution A040, the resolution should be amended to delete “preamble and.” The Preamble begins

We, as Churches of the Anglican Communion, under the Lordship of Jesus Christ, solemnly covenant together in these following affirmations and commitments.

Clearly, “these following affirmations and commitments” refers to everything that follows, including Section Four. We cannot, in conscience, affirm this while rejecting Section Four.

Even though the wording comes from the Lambeth Quadrilateral—the Lambeth Conference version, though our church never officially adopted any version—I find objectionable the wording of Section 1.1.3: “[Each Church affirms:] the Holy Scriptures … as being the rule and ultimate standard of faith.” If this were true, we wouldn’t have female priests, and we wouldn’t eat shrimp.

Like so much of the Covenant, Section 1.2 can be the subject of very different interpretations. It deals with scripture, theology, and ecumenical relations. I suspect that an Episcopal Church bishop could interpret this section in a way that would be accorded nearly universal acceptance within our church. I also suspect that a GAFCON bishop could conclude from Section 1.2 that in no way could The Episcopal Church in good conscience subscribe to it.

Section 2.1 is largely unobjectionable. I even like the description in Section 2.1.4 of the Communion as “a worldwide family of interdependent churches.” Section 2.2 is as acceptable—it is mostly about the Five Marks of Mission—though the phrase “mutual accountability” in Section 2.2.1 gives me the willies.

My queasiness increases as I read Section 3.1. Section 3.1.2 begins

[Each Church affirms:] its resolve to live in a Communion of Churches. Each Church, with its bishops in synod, orders and regulates its own affairs and its local responsibility for mission through its own system of government and law and is therefore described as living “in communion with autonomy and accountability.”

The quoted phrase “in communion with autonomy and accountability” is another of those clubs that conservative churches will use to try to restrain liberal ones. Perhaps more objectionable is the suggestion that all churches in the Communion are ruled by bishops. Frankly, this is not a strength but a problem. Members of our own House of Deputies should strongly object to Resolution A040’s suggestion that this describes our own church. The same section asserts that the Instruments of Communion enable Communion churches “to be conformed together to the mind of Christ.” Diversity, no matter how civil, is not an objective of the Anglican Covenant. Unity in doctrine seems also to be the objective when Section 3.1.4  speaks of articulating “the common faith of the Church’s members (consensus fidelium).”

Section 3.1.4 goes on to enumerate and attribute functions to the so-called Instruments of Communion. (Note that there has never been an official designation of what the Instruments are, though the Covenant, if widely adopted, would be such a designation.) In the descriptions, we see more indications that all churches of the Communion should progress in lockstep. The Anglican Consultative Council, for example, “calls the Churches into mutual responsibility and interdependence.” Although other tasks attributed to the ACC seem appropriate (e.g., “[i]t facilitates the co-operative work of the Churches of the Anglican Communion”), I’m less enthusiastic about our church’s being called “into mutual responsibility and interdependence.”

In fact, I think one can call the whole notion of Instruments of Unity into question. The Lambeth Conference, whose very purpose seems to be controversial, appears to be on indefinite suspension. This appears to be the case for the Primates Meeting as well. Moreover, the Standing Committee, which has quietly been given enhanced legal status, is not mentioned among the Instruments.

In reality, the Anglican Communion has become schizophrenic in recent years, asserting the independence of Communion churches, on one hand, and declaring that they must restrain their actions where other churches object. This is perhaps best illustrated by Section 3.2.2:

[Acknowledging our interdependent life, each Church, reliant on the Holy Spirit, commits itself:] to respect the constitutional autonomy of all of the Churches of the Anglican Communion, while upholding our mutual responsibility and interdependence in the Body of Christ, and the responsibility of each to the Communion as a whole.

This naturally leads into the notion of shared discernment. In Section 3.2.3, we find

Some issues, which are perceived as controversial or new when they arise, may well evoke a deeper understanding of the implications of God’s revelation to us; others may prove to be distractions or even obstacles to the faith [emphasis added]. All such matters therefore need to be tested by shared discernment in the life of the Church.

No doubt, we are being told that such matters as the blessing of same-sex unions should not proceed anywhere until all churches agree that such blessings are acceptable (i.e., when Hell freezes over).

Section 3.2.4 asserts that churches should “seek a shared mind with other Churches, through the Communion’s councils“ and “undertake wide consultation with the other Churches of the Anglican Communion and with the Instruments and Commissions of the Communion.”

Section 3.4.5 will certainly be violated in Salt Lake City as the report of the Marriage Task Force is considered:

[Acknowledging our interdependent life, each Church, reliant on the Holy Spirit, commits itself:] to act with diligence, care and caution in respect of any action which may provoke controversy, which by its intensity, substance or extent could threaten the unity of the Communion and the effectiveness or credibility of its mission.

Section 3.2.6 asserts that, “in situations of conflict,” we will “participate in mediated conversations.”

Finally, Section 3.2.7 commits us “to have in mind that our bonds of affection and the love of Christ compel us always to uphold the highest degree of communion possible.”

Summary

From the foregoing, it should be obvious that the first three sections of the Anglican Covenant neither describe the present relationship of The Episcopal Church to the Anglican Communion nor a relationship we intend to develop. As such, it is not the case that, as the current version of Resolution A040 asserts, the Preamble and first three sections of the Anglican Communion Covenant affirm our common identity and membership in the Anglican Communion.

Therefore, Resolution A040 should be amended to read

A040: Response to the Anglican Covenant Process

Resolved, the House of _____ concurring, That the 78th General Convention of The Episcopal Church affirm our common identity and membership in the Anglican Communion; and be it further

Resolved, That the 78th General Convention direct The Episcopal Church's members of the Anglican Consultative Council to express our appreciation to the 16th meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC16, Lusaka 2016) for the gift of inter-Anglican conversation and mutuality in God's mission engendered by the Anglican Communion Covenant process.

Explanation
Pursuant to the charge given the B005 Task Force, we monitored Anglican and ACC activities regarding the Anglican Covenant process and believe this resolution to respond appropriately to the current status of this process in Anglicanism generally and the ACC specifically. This resolution has no budgetary implications.

Update, 5/21/2015: In my May 21, 2015, post “More on the Anglican Covenant Resolution” I suggest another reason that any resolution about the Covenant should not be construed as endorsing any part of the pact.

Insurances

A local health system is using a word in a way I have never before encountered. Butler Health System has been advertising on television that it accepts most “insurances.” “Insurances” is also used on Butler’s Web site (see circled text below; click for a larger view):

The meaning of “Insurances We Accept” is clear, but I think that most native speakers of American English would write “Insurance We Accept” or “Insurance Plans We Accept.”

“Insurance” can refer to a particular policy (“My car insurance is very good.”), but it can also mean coverage by some insurance plan (“All clients have insurance.”). Because of this, I see no reason ever to use the plural of “insurance,” and I think it should be considered nonstandard usage. Perhaps usage is different within the insurance industry; I don’t know about that. Has anyone else encountered “insurances” in speech or writing?

Update: A Google search turned up many other uses of “insurances,” all of which are on Web sites of medical institutions.

Analyzing the TREC Report, Part 4

This is the fourth installment in a series of essays on the final report of the Task Force for Reimagining The Episcopal Church. An index to all my posts analyzing the TREC report can be found here.

My comments on the report of the Task Force for Reimagining The Episcopal Church so far may have seemed rather random. In this post, I will begin at the beginning of the TREC report.

The Task Force

The first page of the report—see above link, as the first “final” report is slightly different from the Blue Book version—lists task force members. By orders, the composition of the task force looks a lot like that of the General Convention. Lay and clergy are equally represented, and there are fewer bishops. I would like to have seen more laypeople who represent the greater part of the church. It is unfortunate that the task force report does not contain biographies of the contributors to the report. One recommendation of the report is that members of Executive Council be chosen for their particular skills. I wonder if such a selection process was used in forming the task force itself. I have no idea.

Page 1 also includes a statement of TREC’s mandate—something of a distillation of the charge in Resolution C095, which is reproduced on pages 19 and 20—and an abbreviated summary of TREC’s meeting schedule. One may quibble about the recommendations found in the report, but, on the whole, the task force seems to have done what it was asked to do. As far as process goes, however, I believe TREC made one serious misstep, and it is one for which it is not totally responsible. The enabling resolution included this item:

Resolved, That the Task Force shall convene a special gathering to receive responses to the proposed recommendations to be brought forward to the 78th General convention, and shall invite to this gathering from each diocese at least a bishop, a lay deputy, a clerical deputy, and one person under the age of 35. It may also include representatives of institutions and communities (e.g., religious orders, seminaries, intentional communities);

There were at least two serious problems with this mandate. First, without substantial funding, it was unreasonable to expect every diocese to send the desired attendees. Second, no deadline date was set for the “special gathering,” although a delivery date was specified for the final report. Ideally, the General Convention resolution should have required that the event called for happened sufficiently in advance of the deadline date for the final report that adequate time would be available to factor insights offered from across the church into the task force’s ultimate product.

The “special gathering” was implemented as a brief meeting at Washington National Cathedral that was “attended” primarily by people sitting at home at their computers. Even if one believes that a few thousand people can meaningfully participate in such a meeting, there were three major problems with the event designed by the task force. First, although TREC had published several papers, no one really knew, either before or after the event, just what “the proposed recommendations” of TREC were. Offering “responses” was therefore a shot in the dark. Second, the National Cathedral event was scheduled in October, and the task force was supposed to be meeting together for the last time the next day. The report was due in November, a deadline it missed by about a week. Even had the proposed recommendations been known and intelligently criticized, the task force really had no time to incorporate any substantial criticisms into their final report. Of course, the recommendations were not known and, third, the “special gathering” was too short to collect much feedback. Moreover, members of the task force did half the talking, so not much in the way of “responses” were really possible. In short, the “special gathering” was a disaster.

Introductory Matter

A number of pundits have had good things to say about the introductory matter in the TREC report. Personally, I have had a hard time wrapping my mind around it, and I think that members of the task force found it difficult to distinguish what was and was not part of their remit. Following a resolve setting forth the Five Marks of Mission as the mission of the church, Resolution C095 states

Resolved, That this General Convention establish a Task Force under the Joint Rules of Order, whose purpose shall be to present the 78th General Convention with a plan for reforming the Church’s structures, governance, and administration;

Was the task force to concentrate on issues of polity and management with the goal of making church governance more efficient, or was it necessary to consider mission and how structure could support that mission? The task force seems to have done a bit of each. Recommended changes to Executive Council, for example, are clearly intended to make that body work more efficiently. (It is an open question whether the changes would have the desired effect, but the desired effect is clear.) Other recommendations, such as those promoting clergy working other than full-time, address changed circumstances in how we do church. TREC was not asked to reimagine how we do church, which is perhaps where the redesign of our church should really have started. Resolution C095, however, was really the product of deputy frustration with the workings of the church’s administrative mechanism, especially its handling of the triennium budget, and the resolution, for good or ill, concentrates on organizational structure.

In any case, the report is surely correct in pointing out that The Episcopal Church no longer occupies the privileged position in society it once did. Only yesterday, the Pew Research Center published “America’s Changing Religious Landscape,” which reports significant declines in mainline Protestant and Roman Catholic churches. The message in the TREC report seems to be “make do with less.” Perhaps that is the best we can do, though I surely hope not. What I do know is that making the General Convention into a unicameral legislature is not going to do much to save our church from current demographic trends.

The report admits the limitation of the administrative changes it recommends and paints a glowing, but unrealistic picture of what the future could hold for the church:

While structural and technical changes, by themselves, will not be sufficient for reimagining the Church in the midst of a changing world, we have come to believe that they are essential to progress—even at the local level. Chosen wisely and implemented well, these changes will give us more time, energy, and financial resources for innovation and adaptation; speed decision-making; provide Church leadership with a bold and holistic agenda for change; and reinvent the roles of Church-wide organizations away from “doing” mission and toward enabling mission by connecting communities and individuals for mutual support, learning, and collaboration.

What the task force ignores here is the cost of change. First, dealing with the TREC report in Salt Lake City will take an enormous amount of time and energy, and other matters will suffer. More importantly, any kind of reorganization is disruptive and time-consuming. Even if the polity changes recommended by TREC result in minor efficiencies—and I don’t think anyone is suggesting the resulting efficiencies will be anything but minor—no one seems to have considered the opportunity costs of implementing them. The church may be focused not on mission but on institutional change for three, six, or nine years or more.

Finally, in this post anyway, I want to say something about the story of Luke 10:1–11. I should first say that I am wary of the Anglican tendency in documents to find guidance (or, more likely, support) in scripture. The Luke passage actually is rather perplexing. What is Jesus about here? Is this a training exercise for the disciples? Is he sending out advance teams to prepare for his next ministry campaign? I really don’t know, but I don’t think Luke is telling us how to run a 21st-century church. Despite its apparent fondness for this story, TREC notes: “The 21st century represents a profoundly different environment for The Episcopal Church, with new challenges and opportunities.” If that environment is different from the 20th century, it is surely different from the 1st. To the degree that the Luke story is relevant to how we do church, it seems most relevant at the parish level, not at the highest level of the church. But that level, of course, is not what TREC was tasked to examine.

Next

In my next post about the TREC report, I will consider in greater depth the resolutions proposed by the task force. Please stay tuned.

Squirrels 2, Human 0

I took pride in my strategy for keeping my suet feeder attached to the bungee cord used to hang it from a tree limb. (See “Defending against Squirrels.”) The morning after I had declared victory over tree-climbing rodents, however, I found the feeder, less suet, and bungee cord on the ground.

I ditched the bungee cord, fastened the handle of the feeder more securely to the body of the unit, inserted a new block of suet, and re-hung the whole thing using nylon cord. The pictures below (click for a larger view) shows what I awoke to this morning.

Empty feeder on tangled cord

A clearer view of the disaster

I am at a loss to explain how the suet was removed and the cord was wrapped around the tree. I am assuming that one or more squirrels is responsible, but it is difficult to see how this bit of larceny could have been pulled off on such a slight limb.

I am contemplating my next move.

Defending against Squirrels

When I first put up a suet feeder, I hung it from a thin branch that I thought would not support a squirrel. In the past week or so, I have had to pick the feeder off the ground several times, and I suspected that a squirrel might be managing to knock it down. The last time I found the feeder on the ground, I replaced it and held it in place with a cable tie. (In case it isn’t obvious from the photo below, the feeder is hung from a bungee cord.) In the last couple of days, I’ve caught a squirrel too near the feeder for comfort. I think the feeder will be staying in place now, however.

Supermarket Irritations, Part 2

Supermarkets usually hang signs over aisles announcing the items found below. The signs are quite helpful, though they seldom list all products in a given aisle. Some intuition is needed on the part of shoppers to find unlisted items.

I can appreciate the need to minimize the text on these signs while still communicating the necessary information. A common abbreviation (or indication of ignorance—I don’t know which) is the use of “can” where “canned” is called for. Tuna packed in a can is canned tuna, not can tuna. (You really cannot make tuna from a can.) In many supermarkets, however, I see signs for “can meat,” “can fruit”—doesn’t that sound delicious—or “can soup.”

Supermarkets are not uniquely guilty of this sort of mistake, though the omission of “ed” in a modifier does not seem widespread. Perhaps the most commonly misused examples are “ice coffee” and “ice tea” for “iced coffee” and “iced tea.” Neither drink is made from ice! In speech, “iced tea” usually is sounded as “ice tea” because of the awkwardness of the juxtaposed “d” and “t” sounds, even for the knowledgeable  speaker. The customer who asks for “ice coffee,” however, has no excuse.

Typical supermarket aisle sign

Supermarket Irritations, Part 1

I received e-mail today from supermarket Giant Eagle advertising current specials. Among the specials were 4 cartons of a dozen eggs for $5, 2 packages of bacon for $6, and a free package of English muffins when one is purchased at the usual price. It is also common these days to see ads for 10 of whatever for $10. Happily, though not invariably, one need not purchase all the items advertised to get the sale price. How often, after all, does one need 4 dozen eggs? Presumably the marketers think that people believe that 4 for $5 seems cheaper than $1.25 each. Probably, some people, uncertain of whether the price applies to a single unit and not wanting to be embarrassed at checkout, will actually buy 4 cartons of eggs, even if so many eggs aren’t immediately needed.

The buy-one-get-one-free English muffins is probably a good deal. All too often, however, one sees buy-one-get-one-half-off offers. The inattentive shopper sees such an offer and thinks 50% off. Of course, the actual discount is 25%, which is only half as impressive.

I find all this complex pricing very irritating. The unit price for a 10-for-$10 item is easy to calculate, but that of the buy-one-get-one-half-off item or the 3-for-$2.50 item is less perspicuous. Carry your calculator with you when you go shopping (or plan to use the calculator on your cell phone).

Downy Woodpecker

I took this picture of a female downy woodpecker at my suet feeder this morning. This was done with a hand-held camera. I didn’t have time to set up my tripod. (Click for a larger view.)

Transformed Icon

I was in a drug store yesterday when my phone rang. I took out my LG Android cell phone and immediately realized that I had a problem. I couldn’t find the phone icon with which I usually answer a call. The caller hung up before I figured out what to do. I called back, no yet knowing what had happened.

Only after I got home did I discover the problem. Somehow, the phone icon had been replaced with the camera icon. (See the picture below. Click on it for a larger view.)

My LG Android phone with confusing
icons circled

Somehow, the phone icon was changed without (as far as I know) my doing anything to make it happen. Moreover, I cannot figure out how to change it back without downloading an app for the purpose. Actually, I can’t even be sure that would work. And it really shouldn’t be necessary, right?

Does anyone have a clue about how I could get my phone icon back?

In or Out?

The Episcopal Church is slow to rid itself of schismatic bishops. For example, Robert Duncan was deposed less than a month before the split of the Pittsburgh diocese he had engineered was effected; John-David Schofield was deposed only after he nearly destroyed the Diocese of San Joaquin by attempting to take most of it out of The Episcopal Church. Some bishops who are clearly functioning in rival churches still appear to be considered Episcopal Church bishops in good standing. Either publicly available information is out-of-date, or The Episcopal Church is asleep at the switch. Consider three examples.

David C. Bane

David C. Bane. joined the Anglican Church in North America after retiring as the Bishop of Southern Virginia. After informing Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori of his having jumped ship, his renunciation was accepted. Episcopal News Service reported this June 15, 2009. ECDPlus, admittedly not the definitive source for information about Episcopal clergy, shows Bane as a bishop canonically resident in the Diocese of Southern Virginia. (ECDPlus pages here and below are shown as PDF pages, since the pages may change in the future.) This seems to be an out-of-date problem. Bane is no longer a bishop of The Episcopal Church, and both official and unofficial church records should reflect the fact.

Alden M. Hathaway

I have a special interest in Alden Hathaway, as he was bishop when I first came to live in the Diocese of Pittsburgh. It was Alden Hathaway who brought Robert Duncan into the diocese as canon to the ordinary. ECDPlus shows Hathaway as a bishop canonically resident in South Carolina. He is further identified as holding a position in the Parish Church of St. Helena in Beaufort, South Carolina. The problem here is that Hathaway is in the breakaway “diocese” headed by former Episcopal bishop Mark Lawrence, not the true Episcopal diocese, currently known as the Episcopal Church in South Carolina. (See list of churches here.) Hathaway is clearly violating his ordination vows and should be deposed. Is ECDPlus wrong—I suspect not—or has Hathaway somehow slipped through the cracks? I could find no mention of Hathaway’s being removed from The Episcopal Church in the Episcopal News Service archive. If he is still considered an Episcopal Church bishop, that needs to be changed. Is there a volunteer who would like to bring charges against the former Bishop of Pittsburgh?

Peter H. Beckwith

Peter Beckwith was Bishop of Springfield from 1992 to 2010. Beckwith has been an officer of the American Anglican Council and had charges brought against him for intervening in the Quincy property case in favor of the schismatics and against The Episcopal Church. Beckwith had long been working with people who set up the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA). According to ACNA, he was officially welcomed into its College of Bishops on October 10, 2014. A month later, The Rev. Mark Harris reviewed Beckwith’s activities subverting The Episcopal Church over the years. Noting the official move to ACNA, Harris declared that Beckwith finally “has left the house.” He also observed that there seems to have been no move to remove him officially from the church he has left. Is there a volunteer who would like to bring charges against the former Bishop of Springfield?

Others?

Are there other bishops who should not be allowed to represent themselves as Episcopal Church bishops? (I do not pretend to have done an exhaustive search.) Possibly so. It is important to know who is in and who is out of our church. Those who have used their positions to undermine the church should not be allowed to remain in it. If they want to destroy The Episcopal Church, let them pursue their program from the outside. It is time for all Episcopalians to ask that schismatic bishops be removed from the church.

St. Paul’s to Allow Same-Sex Blessings

Today, I received a form letter from the Rev. Lou Hays, rector of my church, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Mt. Lebanon, Pennsylvania. The letter, dated April 24, 2015, explains that Lou will allow “the blessing of a lifelong covenant between people of the same sex” at St. Paul’s. In particular, he explains that

I have determined that we are willing to use this liturgy [authorized by the 2012 General Convention and allowed at the rector’s discretion by Bishop Dorsey McConnell] at St. Paul’s when appropriate circumstances warrant as outlined in the Bishop’s letter, with the additional requirement that at least one of the two be a parishioner of St. Paul’s. As instruments of God’s love, I believe this is the right thing for us to do. This decision follows a period of discernment, including work that [the Rev.] Michelle [Boomgaard] and the Vestry did on this subject last summer during my sabbatical.

I was delighted to receive this news of which I had no advance warning. I was not totally surprised, however. Shortly after coming to St. Paul’s presented a series of presentations on homosexuality that changed minds in the parish. (You can read Lou’s letter here.)

It would be interesting to know how many parishes in the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh have approved same-sex blessings in principle and how many have actually performed them. (Since same-sex marriage is legal in Pennsylvania, churches can, as I understand it, do more than simply bless a same-sex couple.) I do know that Calvary has actually performed ceremonies. Do readers know what other churches have done?

End of the Line for the Covenant at the General Convention

As a representative of the No Anglican Covenant Coalition, along with the Rev. Malcolm French, I worked hard at the 2012 General Convention to get the convention to reject the Anglican Covenant outright. We were unsuccessful, and the General Convention served up a big warm pot of Anglican fudge:

Resolution Number:	2012-B005
Title:	Continue Commitment to the Anglican Covenant Process
Legislative Action Taken:	Concurred as Substituted
Final Text:

Resolved, That the 77th General Convention express its gratitude to those who so faithfully worked at producing and responding to the proposed Anglican Covenant (www.anglicancommunion.org/commission/covenant/final/text.cfm); and be it further

Resolved, That the 77th General Convention acknowledge that following extensive study and prayerful consideration of the Anglican Covenant there remain a wide variety of opinions and ecclesiological positions in The Episcopal Church; and be it further

Resolved, That as a pastoral response to The Episcopal Church, the General Convention decline to take a position on the Anglican Covenant at this convention; and be it further

Resolved, That the General Convention ask the Presiding Officers to appoint a task force of Executive Council (Blue Book, 637) to continue to monitor the ongoing developments with respect to the Anglican Covenant and how this church might continue its participation; and be it further

Resolved, That the Executive Council task force on the Anglican Covenant report its findings and recommendations to the 78th General Convention.

Citation:
General Convention, Journal of the General Convention of...The Episcopal Church, Indianapolis, 2012 (New York: General Convention, 2012), pp. 241-242.

The report from the Executive Council Task Force on the Anglican Covenant is now available here. That report doesn’t really report any “findings,” but it does contain a “recommendation,” namely, a proposed resolution. That resolution is the following:

A040: Affirm Response to the Anglican Covenant Process

Resolved, the House of _____ concurring, That the 78th General Convention of The Episcopal Church affirm our common identity and membership in the Anglican Communion as expressed in the preamble and first three sections of the Anglican Communion Covenant; and be it further

Resolved, That the 78th General Convention direct The Episcopal Church's members of the Anglican Consultative Council to express our appreciation to the 16th meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC16, Lusaka 2016) for the gift of inter-Anglican conversation and mutuality in God's mission engendered by the Anglican Communion Covenant process.

Explanation
Pursuant to the charge given the B005 Task Force, we monitored Anglican and ACC activities regarding the Anglican Covenant process and believe this resolution to respond appropriately to the current status of this process in Anglicanism generally and the ACC specifically. This resolution has no budgetary implications.

At the outset, I should say that I would have The Episcopal Church reject the Covenant categorically. In my heart of hearts, I would like to see something like the resolution I proposed in a post on September 21, 2011. Admittedly this is a rather angry resolution that attempts to name every indignity visited upon The Episcopal Church by its sister churches of the Communion. The No Anglican Covenant Coalition proposed a more temperate resolution on April 27, 2012.

Although I would prefer to see the resolution from the Executive Council strengthened, I would not be especially upset were it to be passed as proposed. No doubt, however, there will be those at the convention who will seek to have the church offer a more conciliatory response to the Communion.

Here are some reasons for opponents of the Covenant to be satisfied with A040:

1. Neither the Introduction nor Section Four is mentioned in the resolution.
2. The resolution does not accept, adopt, affirm, or subscribe to the Covenant Preamble or Sections One, Two, and Three. Instead, it “affirm[s] our common identity and membership in the Anglican Communion” as set forth in those sections. It is not completely clear what this means, and it is likely to be seen as partial adoption by the Anglican Communion Office. It isn’t, however.
3. The resolution does not even thank the Communion for its work on the Covenant. Instead it says that we are appreciative of  “the gift of inter-Anglican conversation and mutuality in God’s mission engendered by the Anglican Communion Covenant process.” The process has been useful, but, implicitly, the product is not so good.
4. The resolution in no way suggests that The Episcopal Church will have anything more to do with the Covenant. The implication is that we are done with this project and will have no part in the implementation of the Covenant.

I am not completely satisfied that the resolution suggests some significant value in any of the Covenant, but the resolution appears not to commit The Episcopal Church to anything significant. I expect to say more about the sections of the Covenant referred to in the resolution later

Update, 5/15/2015: In my May 14, 2015, post “Further Thoughts on the Anglican Covenant and the General Convention,” I offer and justify amendments to Resolution A040 that I believe would make it more honest and acceptable.

Update, 5/21/2015: In my May 21, 2015, post “More on the Anglican Covenant Resolution” I suggest another reason that any resolution about the Covenant should not be construed as endorsing any part of the pact.

Don’t Take General Convention Reports at Face Value

I am not the only Episcopalian gobsmacked by the report to the General Convention by the Board of Trustees of the General Theological Seminary.

The two-page report paints an encouraging picture of a seminary emerging from financial difficulties and implementing an innovative program that will better prepare men and women for ordained roles in The Episcopal Church, while at the same time easing the financial burden of a first-class seminary education. General Convention deputies should be pleased and move along to more pressing matters of business, right?

The reality, of course, is that the General Theological Seminary of The Episcopal Church has been in chaos since the beginning of the academic year and, in the opinion of many, its continued existence after nearly two centuries is in doubt. (For readers for whom this is news, this story will give you some idea of what has been going on at the church’s oldest seminary. See Google for other stories and perspectives.)

The main body of the GTS Board of Trustees’ report is under one thousand words long, about a page and a half. About 13% of the report recounts the history of the seminary. A bit more than 19% concerns “A Plan to Choose Life,” which is mostly about the improved financial health of the seminary. Somewhat short of half the report (about 44%) concerns a new program, The Way of Wisdom and The Wisdom Year. This is described as a growing success. One paragraph concerns the hiring of  the Very Rev. Kurt H. Dunkle as Dean and President, which contributes about 10% of the report. A final paragraph addresses the upcoming 200th anniversary of the seminary and its readiness for the next 200 years (another 6%). The final 6% of the report, arguably, alludes to the troubles besetting GTS in the current academic year:

Under Dean Dunkle’s leadership, General Seminary is addressing, head-on, the changing world and the changing Church. This rapid reshaping has not been without some disruption—change is always painful, but it is essential to ensure the viability of General. We know that others in the seminary system are struggling with many of the same issues.

Additionally, in the final paragraph, there is also a reference to “working through disruptions that result from rapid change.”.

In fact, most of the faculty went on strike, intending to form a union, because the new Dean and President was viewed as an insensitive autocrat who acts more like a shift manager at McDonald’s than an academic administrator. No mention is made of faculty members being fired for their efforts and rehired, less tenure, for the remainder of the academic year. Nothing is said about the faculty members who are leaving or might leave. The report is silent about the fact that, despite pleas from students, alumni, and interested Episcopalians, the Board of Trustees continues to assert its complete confidence in Dean Dunkle.

The Board of Trustees, which has, I think, acted with even less integrity and common sense than has Dean Dunkle in the faculty fracas, produced a report that does not simply put a happy face on a bad situation. Instead, the report intentionally misrepresents reality and misleads General Convention deputies. It is as if there was a nuclear war and a report on the past year failed to mention it. This is hardly the sort of behavior one expects from a church board.

The General Convention elects certain members of the General Theological Seminary board. It should take a vote of no confidence in the current members of the board and request their resignation. It should elect members to the board with academic experience, preferably, but not exclusively, in seminaries.

It is clear from the GTS report that deputies should not take reports it receives at face value. I, for one, will lose a good deal of faith in the governance of this church if deputies do not challenge the GTS Board of Trustees and take some action directed at assuring that the General Seminary of The Episcopal Church does, in fact, last to its 200th year and beyond.

Analyzing the TREC Report, Part 3

This is the third installment in a series of essays on the final report of the Task Force for Reimagining The Episcopal Church. An index to all my posts analyzing the TREC report can be found here.

Captain Obvious
(Hotels.com)

The more I read the final report from the Task Force for Reimagining The Episcopal Church, the more dissatisfied I become with TREC’s performance.The keyword in the task force’s name is Reimagining. In fact, TREC seems to have done little reimagining, little thinking about the appropriate nature of the church based on first principles. The report cites the Five Marks of Mission, of course, and a passage of questionable relevance from Luke, but, even if all the recommendations in the report were adopted, The Episcopal Church would not look much different from how it looks today.

In many ways, the report looks as though it was written by Captain Obvious—seminaries should do their jobs, the Church Pension Fund should do its job, we should eliminate inessential standing bodies, etc. Perhaps the only non-obvious recommendation is for a unicameral legislature. Even this is not a new or radical idea.

In its nine General Convention resolutions, the TREC report gets deeply into details of tweaking the church as it is now. If one actually compares resolutions to existing constitutional and canonical provisions, a comparison inexplicably missing from its report, it becomes obvious that the task force worked hard to change as little as possible. Even formulations likely to raise objections are often lifted unchanged from our existing governing documents.

Where is the new vision for a 21st-centuy Episcopal Church? The task force might better have spent its time dreaming of a new church built from the ground up and letting others worry about the details of implementation. To be sure, General Convention would not dissolve the church and start over from scratch, but a more visionary report might have provided a better long-term goal toward which to work.

Consider the task force’s recommendations for the General Convention. Even taking into account the change from two to one legislative body, not much is really changed. No recommendations are made concerning its frequency of meeting, and no suggestions are made to allow more younger people and ordinary working people to play an effective part in church governance. Could we have more frequent, shorter meetings? more electronic meeting? Were such ideas even considered by the task force?

Who would be part of the General Convention under the TREC plan? Happily, Resolution A002 excludes retired bishops from seats at the General Convention. This idea has often been proposed and has always been voted down. Perhaps things will be different this year. What I have not seen remarked upon is the exclusion of  assistant bishops. Why are suffragans included but assistant bishops and retired bishops are not? Arguments could be made here, but they have not been. Further, there are some problems with the Article I revision. An assistant or retired bishop is not automatically included qua bishop, but can they attend at all, that is, could they be elected as clergy deputies? It seems not, but the matter is unclear. Moreover, electing an otherwise disqualified bishop takes a slot away from ordinary clergy.

Our current Article I allows diocese to send as many as four clergy and four lay deputies to the General Convention. TREC has this to say about deputies:

[Dioceses] shall be entitled to representation in the General Convention by three ordained persons, priests, or deacons (“Clergy”) canonically resident in the diocese, and not more than three lay persons

Under this provision, one suspects that diocese would send three clergy and three laypeople as deputies. Why does TREC say “three ordained persons” and “not more than three lay persons”? In the current Article I, the provisions for clergy and lay deputies are phrased identically. What is going on here? Is TREC encouraging a diminished number of lay deputies? Who knows. The provision is strange.

Some people have been perplexed by this TREC provision:

General Convention by Canon may reduce the representation to not fewer than two deputies in each order.

This seems like a radical idea, but, in fact, the provision is in our current Constitution! Personally, I think we should be rid of this.

One can argue, of course, that a smaller General Convention will be more “efficient.” This is perhaps true with respect to legislative sessions, but it may be a burden on legislative committees. In any case, reducing the number of clergy and lay deputies will necessarily reduce what diversity there is at General Convention. Minorities of whatever sort—theological, racial, etc.—will have less opportunity to be elected deputies if there are fewer deputies sent from each diocese. This is especially true since one sees many of the same people at each General Convention. Certain clergy and laypeople are sent to the convention again and again. Reducing the number of deputies will make it even harder for new blood to find its way to the convention. (Of course, the good news is that perennial deputies do die.) Perhaps deputies should be term-limited. The experience of the old hands is useful, but not to the exclusion of new deputies.

If TREC was simply interested in decreasing the size of the General Convention, it could have left the number of lay deputies per diocese at four and decreased the number of clergy. General Convention is dominated by ordained persons, yet most Episcopalians are not ordained.

I find it somewhat depressing that I am writing about such small changes in our church polity. I am not alone in being unexcited by the TREC report. I had hoped for an exciting vision of a newly empowered church. I don’t think the TREC report will inspire much joy in Salt Lake City.

Analyzing the TREC Report, Part 2

This is the second installment in a series of essays on the final report of the Task Force for Reimagining The Episcopal Church. An index to all my posts analyzing the TREC report can be found here.

This second essay on the TREC report was intended to focus on aspects of the General Convention. It will, instead, focus on the mechanics of the actual report. I should explain.

As I was rereading the report, which I had on my computer and tablet, as well as on paper, I found it was difficult to navigate from one location in the report to another. Perhaps, I thought, it would be useful to add bookmarks to the PDF file, which would provide an effective table of contents.When I went to do that, both for myself and for others who might find that useful, I discovered that bookmarks were already in the file, but file properties were set to show only pages, rather than pages and bookmarks, when the file is opened: one mark for the task force and one mark against the task force.

For some reason, I opened the report on the Blue Book home page. To my surprise, I discovered a report that was 62-, not 73-pages long. The report I had been working from (and from which I derived page numbers for my previous post) was the report originally released on December 15, 2014, and the report to which the ENS story of the release was linked. (Resolution C095 called for a final report to the General Convention to be produced by November 2014. The actual release date and a certain lack of polish in the report suggest that the task force was struggling to make its deadline.)

The image below shows the Description tabs of the Document Properties pages of the originally released PDF and of the file now on the Blue Book page. Note that the Modified dates are, respectively, December 15, 2014, and January 6, 2015, and the number of pages are 73 and 62. (Click on the image for a larger view.) To confuse matters further, a page on the TREC Web site has a link to the original release and to another file from two days later that is also 73 pages long. (I have no idea how these two December versions differ, but I suspect that they do so very little.

There is good news and bad news regarding the report that is now officially part of the Blue Book. The text is unchanged (but see below), though everything has been reformatted. The font and the margins are smaller, certain lists are formatted differently, and type styles (roman, boldface, italic) differ in places. All of this makes the “new” version less readable, but only marginally so. Given that the Blue Book is electronic this year, it was hardly necessary to reduce the page count by making the print smaller.

Everything appears in the same order in both versions, but the “new” file includes an introductory page containing the task force membership and a summary of work. The TREC membership is still listed in Appendix 1, though the dioceses of the members have been deleted. A new page containing (minimal) budget information has been added before the list of appendices. Finally, the Blue Book version of the final report has lost its title (“Engaging God’s Mission in the 21st Century: Final Report of the Task Force for Reimagining The Episcopal Church”) The page header now reads “Report to the 78th General Convention” and the page footer reads “Task Force for Reimagining The Episcopal Church.”

Why any of these changes were seen as necessary, I do not know.

The most unfortunate deficiency of the Blue Book PDF is the lack of bookmarks. For the benefit of deputies who may want to jump around in the report in a hurry, I have produced a new version of the report with bookmarks. The text is unchanged. You can find it here. I have resisted adding bookmarks within sections to avoid bookmark clutter. I have the new version will be viewed as helpful.

Analyzing the TREC Report, Part 1

This is the first installment in a series of essays on the final report of the Task Force for Reimagining The Episcopal Church. An index to all my posts analyzing the TREC report can be found here.

I have written a good deal about the work of the Task Force for Reimagining The Episcopal Church (TREC). (See blog posts here, here, here, here, and here.) I have not yet had anything to say about the final report produced by TREC, which includes specific proposals the task force wants the 2015 General Convention to adopt.

I have repeatedly begun reading the TREC report and have found it rough going. The General Convention is fast approaching, however, so I think it’s time for me to get serious about the report if I’m going to have anything to say at all.

My original plan was to write a single essay about the report, perhaps to be accompanied by an annotated version of it to highlight particular issues. As I worked my way through the document, however, the significance of its 73-page length became apparent. There is a lot of material there, and the individual pieces are tightly coupled.

This led me to develop Plan B. I will begin a series of essays about “Engaging God’s Mission in the 21st Century: Final Report of the Task Force for Reimagining The Episcopal Church.” These reflections will appear here in no particular order. (Part 2 is here.)

This first essay addresses some global issues and looks in depth at what appears to be a minor recommendation of the task force. My primary concern is the task force’s Resolution A009. My comments on the overall report are mainly to provide context for an analysis of that resolution.

General Remarks on the Report

 

One might reasonably have expected that the task force would have followed a plan something like the following in presenting its recommendations:

1. Articulate the problem or problems to be solved, illustrating the discussion with helpful examples.
2. Analyze the factors contributing to the problems.
3. Enumerate solutions considered.
4. Indicate and justify the approaches considered best.
5. Explain how the chosen approaches are likely to ameliorate the problems identified.
6. Describe how the proposed solutions might be implemented. (Implementation could become yet another problem to be solved.)

In fact, this is nothing like what we see in the report. The problems besetting The Episcopal Church are not described in detail, and proposed solutions are not effectively tied to those problems.

There is a consensus, at least among General Convention deputies, that all is not well with The Episcopal Church, but not everyone agrees on just what is amiss. Curiously, a major reason the 2012 General Convention passed Resolution C095 creating TREC was an intense dissatisfaction with the way budget proposals were handled in 2009 and 2012. The task force has not even identified the budgeting process as a problem, however.

I will have more to say about the approach taken by the task force and the structure of its report in a later essay.

The three major proposals of the task force are presented early in the body of the report, but detailed explanations, such as they are, are only provided in Appendix 3. Even there, one finds more naïve optimism and hand waving than analysis and realism. The six resolutions intended to implement fully the changes in the main proposals are relegated to Appendix 5, where the explanations are, to be generous, modest. As always, the devil is in the details, and the General Convention will be making a serious mistake if it fails to pay as much attention to Appendix 5 as it does to the main body of the report.

In any case, it seems fair to say that the primary recommendation of the task force is the restructuring of the General Convention, along with the redefinition of certain church positions. These changes drive much of the implementing resolutions relegated to Appendix 5.

The Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society

One of the canons that has to be revised if TREC’s proposals are adopted is Canon I.3, Of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society. The explanation offered for replacing the current canon with the text in the Final Report is the following:

This Resolution conforms the Constitution of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society to the changes proposed in other Resolutions to the makeup of the DFMS officers.

That seems straightforward enough and encourages the reader to skim the proposed text and conclude that it looks perfectly reasonable. This is especially true, as the proposed Canon I.3 appears on pages 72 and 73 of the 73-page Final Report. All is not as it seems, however.

The task force has proposed a number of substantial changes to the constitution and canons of the church. In doing so, it has offered replacement text without reference to the current article or canon. This makes it difficult to see exactly what is being proposed and puts an undue burden on deputies who want to understand what they may be asked to vote on. It is not clear if this approach was dictated by time constraints or by a desire to obfuscate. Had the task force clearly indicated what is wanted to change and why, its approach might have been forgivable. As it did not, it isn’t. In fact, one has to ask if even the members of TREC really know what they were doing, as we shall see.

The final resolution proposed by the task force, Resolution A009, offers replacement text for Canon I.3, Of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society. Resolution A009 mistakenly says that it is offering a replacement for Canon 1.4, an identification that contains two distinct errors. Presumably, this is the sort of typographical error that will be caught and corrected by a legislative committee, though it calls into question the care with which the report was written.

To facilitate the discussion of Resolution A009, the reader may want to read the current canon, the proposed replacement, and the comparison of the two generated by Microsoft Word.

I now want to consider the changes being made by TREC. I should first note that there is a minor inconsistency in the current canon, namely the use of the in the canon’s title, whereas the first word in the name of the DFMS is always rendered The in the canon’s body.

Now consider the minor changes made by the task force:

1. In line 2, and is substituted for as for no obvious reason. The meaning is unchanged.
2. Article II changes the name of the society by eliminating the prefixed The and the terminating of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America. (I will have more to say about Article II below.)
3. In line 2 of Article II, in line 3 of Article III, and in the final line of Article III, By-laws has been changed to bylaws, which, of course, reflects more modern spelling and capitalization. On the other hand, in its rewrite of Canon I.1.2, the task force substituted by-laws for By-laws, which introduces an inconsistency in TREC’s own recommendations, albeit not one of substance. In the current canons, By-laws appears elsewhere as well. TREC should have conformed to current conventions, even if they are archaic.
4. Throughout the proposed revised Canon 3, the Society is replaced by the DFMS, an acronym introduced in Article I. Again, this is not a substantive change, but it is an unnecessary stylistic one.
5. At the end of Article III, TREC has substituted with the Canons for therewith, presumably on the theory that nobody says therewith anymore. The change is gratuitous but harmless.

The substitution of Presiding Deputy for President of the House of Deputies and the substitution of Church General Manager for Chief Operating Officer are clearly necessitated by “the changes proposed in other Resolutions.”

There are more substantive changes here, however. Consider the matter of the Treasurer of the DFMS. According to the present Canon I.3, the Treasurer of the DFMS is “the person who is the Chief Financial Officer of the Executive Council.” Executive Council appoints a Chief Financial Officer, who is nominated by the Presiding Bishop and President of the House of Deputies, the Council’s Chair and Vice Chair, respectively (Canon I.4.3(e)). According to Canon I.1.7(a), the person who is the Treasurer of the General Convention is a member of the Executive Council and “may also be Treasurer of the Domestic & Foreign Missionary Society and the Executive Council.” (I assume that what is meant is “may be the Treasurer of the Domestic & Foreign Missionary Society and the Chief Financial Officer of the Executive Council,” since nowhere is there mention of a Treasurer of the Executive Council who is not the Chief Financial Officer. This is another instance of an inconsistency in the current canons.) In practice, it appears that the Treasurer of the General Convention, the Treasurer of the DFMS, and the Chief Financial Officer of the Executive Council are virtually always the same person.

So much for the way things are. What about how things would be were all of the task force’s recommendations adopted. When I tried to figure this out, I was immediately perplexed by this sentence in the proposed Resolution A009:

The Treasurer shall also serve as the Chief Financial Officer of the DFMS.

This seemingly corresponds to the current wording, which is

the Treasurer shall be the person who is the Chief Financial Officer of the Executive Council;

The careless reader might mistake these excerpts as saying essentially the same thing in a slightly different way. Of the 13 words in the proposed canon and 16 words in the current canon, 9 occur in both in the same order. They do not, however, say the same thing. In the second instance, “Treasurer” clearly refers to the Treasurer of the DFMS. Article III lists the DFMS officers and the proceeds to identify who those people are. In the present canons, the DFMS Treasurer is the person who is the Chief Financial Officer of the Executive Council.

Resolution A009 says that the Treasurer—presumably, the Treasurer of the DFMS—is also the Chief Financial Officer of the DFMS. (I don’t pretend to understand the difference between a Treasurer and a Chief Financial Officer, by the way, but I am led to believe that, in the arena of corporate organization, the two positions have different duties.) This provision is actually redundant, as the proposed Canon I.4.1(o) says that the DFMS Treasurer is also the DFMS Chief Financial Officer. It also says that the DFMS Treasurer is nominated by the Council’s Chair and Vice Chair. Notice, however, than in the current arrangement, it is the Chief Financial Officer of the Executive Council who is so nominated. In the new Canon I.3, Executive Council is without its own Treasurer or Chief Financial Officer. The significance of this is unclear, but it cries out for an explanation. The conventional understanding has been that the Board of Directors of the DFMS is Executive Council. That arrangement seems confused in the TREC report.

The matter of financial officers is further confused by the introduction of the Church Treasurer, who, according to proposed Canon I.4.1(g) is on Executive Council, though without vote. Who is the Church Treasurer? This person is given duties in the TREC report and provision is made for removing the incumbent, but nowhere does the report say how one becomes Church Treasurer. Is this someone different from the Treasurer of General Convention and that of the DFMS. Who knows? General Convention deputies had better find out.

What about the Secretary of the DFMS? In both current and proposed polity, the Secretary of the General Convention is designated the Secretary of Executive Council. In the proposed Canon I.3, however, the identify of the DFMS Secretary is never specified. Moreover, several lines concerning the DFMS Secretary have been stricken. What is going on here? Again, General Convention deputies had better find out what is going on here.

What is most perplexing about the proposed Canon I.3 is the changed nature of the DFMS. Two major changes have been made to Article I of the DFMS constitution. First, of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America has been stricken from the name of the DFMS. Second, the DFMS now includes “all persons who are members of the Church.” The task force is changing the name of the DFMS and throwing everyday Episcopalians out of it!

A quick history lesson is appropriate here. The DFMS was created in the early days of the church to extend the church into newly settled areas of the country and to spread the Gospel abroad. As a corporation, it could collect money, whereas the unincorporated Episcopal Church could not. At first, it was financed by subscriptions, but it was eventually decided that mission was the work of everyone, so everyone was included in the DFMS, which was incorporated in the state of New York. In the modern church, the DFMS and The Episcopal Church have essentially been coterminous. Only the lawyers and accountants could tell them apart, and the distinction was of no interest to the average Episcopalian. Lately, however, Bishop Stacy Sauls, Chief Operating Officer of The Episcopal Church has been identifying the general church’s staff as The Missionary Society, in an apparent attempt to distinguish it (or the DFMS) from The Episcopal Church proper. (I do wish the General Convention would put a stop to this nonsense, but I don’t want to get into that here.) I think the purpose of this unilateral renaming is to polish the image of the New York office, which has not always been viewed favorably in the hinterlands.

Article I of the DFMS constitution that TREC would have the General Convention adopt seems to have the effect of disconnecting the DFMS from The Episcopal Church and its members. This appears to be a public relations ploy or power play or both. General Convention deputies had better figure this one out as well.

Some Final Thoughts

 

Irrespective of how one feels about the wisdom embedded in “Engaging God’s Mission in the 21st Century: Final Report of the Task Force for Reimagining The Episcopal Church,” the report is frankly an impenetrable mess. Even discounting the fact that recommendations are presented with very little analysis and justification, what is actually being recommended is very difficult to wrap one’s mind around. Additional text and a few key diagrams could have gone a long way toward helping deputies understand what they might be expected to vote on in Salt Lake City.

Evidence suggests that the members of TREC had lots of discussions, including discussions about the shape of the final report. That report was probably assembled hurriedly and without much checking for consistency and unintended consequences.

One thing is certain. If deputies simply read the TREC report without studying it for hours on end, they will have little idea of what the proposed changes actually mean for the church. Pray for the General Convention.

A Packaging Suggestion

I bought a box of Honey Nut Cheerios the other day and opened the box at breakfast yesterday morning. Like every other dry cereal I know about, the product is packed in a bag that is hard to open and impossible to reseal. (I use clips to secure the bag after I’ve rolled down the top, but this is hardly a perfect solution to keeping the cereal fresh.)

Why is it that cereal makers have not developed packaging that is easy to open and easy to close? Shredded cheese, for example, often comes in a plastic bag with a tear-off top and a built-in two-part seal. The design isn’t ideal, but it’s more user-friendly than anything one finds in a cereal box.

I don’t think cereal packaging has changed since I was a boy. Isn’t it time that it did?

CEREAL EATERS OF THE WORLD UNITE! Tell General Mills, Kellogg’s, Post, etc., that new packaging is needed.