The Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh Celebrates 150 Years

The Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh has revamped its Web site. Its new incarnation is less cluttered, but I haven’t attempted to inventory everything that’s there and that isn’t. I found particularly interesting the pastoral letter from Bishop Bob Duncan. (The letter is also available here as a PDF file.)

Duncan begins by asserting that the diocese is celebrating its sesquicentennial, i.e., its 150th anniversary this year. He concludes his remarks about this milestone with this somewhat garbled sentence: “The sesquicentennial adaptation of our logo—used for the first time in this letter’s letterhead—will also serve us as a reminder of the great foundation on which we continue to build.” Is the logo one to be used during this year only or, is it going to be used beyond 2015, possibly with a different number in the center? I don’t know. Here is the logo to which he refers:

Everything in black is new. The rest of the graphic has been in use since before the 2008 schism in the diocese. After the news about the sesquicentennial, Duncan discusses other diocesan issues, about which I will make no further comment.

Several things need to be said about this logo. First, there is some honesty in the legend “REALIGNED A.D. 2008.” The Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh, like breakaway groups elsewhere in The Episcopal Church, have tried to maintain the fiction that it is the same diocese that existed before conservative conspirators broke with The Episcopal Church and walked off with the property. Likewise, the Episcopalians left behind were said to have organized a “new” Episcopal Church diocese. This view was always a hard sell in Pittsburgh, in part, because one member of the Standing Committee was not part of the conspiracy and represented continuity in leadership. In any case, the Anglican diocese has continued to number its conventions from the first Episcopal convention, rather than starting over after 2008. At least the 150th anniversary logo acknowledges that something significant happened in 2008.

Then, there is the curious legend “‘FAMOUS FOR GOD.’” Syntactically, this is a classic misuse of quotation marks. Quotation marks are most commonly used in three contexts: (1) to set off quoted material, such as speech; (2) to name certain things, such as chapter titles; and (3) to indicate that something is not quite what the word or words suggest. In the logo in question, neither case (1) nor case (2) applies. This suggests—though it is surely not intended—that the diocese thinks it’s famous for God, but really isn’t.

I suspect that “Famous for God” is a reference to the work of the Rev. Sam Shoemaker, who spoke of Pittsburgh at some time in the future being as famous for God as for steel. (In a certain sense, that has been achieved, but not how Shoemaker intended.) It is ironic that Shoemaker was rector of Calvary Church, whose lawsuit against Duncan and his colleagues many years later is largely responsible for keeping most of the assets of the diocese in the hands of Episcopalians and keeping the question of whether a diocese can secede from The Episcopal Church out of the courts. In any case, Shoemaker was speaking of Pittsburgh, not the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh, and surely not the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh.

I think that the Anglican diocese is famous for Duncan and for conservative subversion of The Episcopal Church. Make of that what you will. I am reminded of my many visits to Episcopal churches outside the area before the diocesan schism. I would introduce myself as a visitor to the rector after the service, and the rector would ask where I was from. His or her face immediately turned noncommittal when I answered, “Pittsburgh.” After giving assurance that I was a loyal Episcopalian, I was invariably offered sympathy. Our diocese was famous, but not for God. Of course, those who left The Episcopal Church for what has become the Anglican Church in North America may have a different view,

The founding year of the Anglican diocese of Pittsburgh is really 2008, but I will grant that the organization shares a history before then. Just as the Christian Church found it useful to claim continuity with the ancient Jewish religion, which provided more respect in the eyes of Romans, the Anglican diocese finds it useful to claim it is older than it actually is. All things considered, a more honest logo might be the following:

A Long-forgotten Curve-stitch Design

A couple of days ago, I had occasion to look for a curve-stitch design I made years ago. I had to search through files I had backed up but never transferred to my current computer. In the process, I found some designs I had completely forgotten about, including the one below.

Click on image for a larger view

I tweaked this figure before posting it here, and it could be improved by adjusting line widths to be more uniform, but I really like the design. Anyone familiar with curve-stitching will be able to recognize how unusual it is.

Islamic State

With the beheading of the 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians by the so-called Islamic State, IS seems to be continuing its campaign  of offending every country on earth. Egypt is only the latest implacable enemy that IS has created by its outrageous behavior.

President Obama is asking for authority to target IS and its allies. Opponents of granting such authority assert that IS does not represent an existential threat to the United States and that our country should not be the world’s policeman. There is some validity to those points, of course. And yet, when Hitler began what would become World War II, it was not clear that Nazi Germany was an existential threat to the U.S. As it turned out, it was.

Once before, Islamic militants overran most of the Western world. Arguably, it’s happening again.

Absalom Jones

Yesterday, February 13, was the day the church celebrates the life of Absalom Jones, the first black priest in The Episcopal Church. Jones was born on November 7, 1746, and died on February 13, 1818. The Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh had its Absalom Jones Day celebration a week ago. I was very much struck by the story of Jones, which was recounted in the service bulletin. His story is quite dramatic. Wouldn’t that story make a great opera? Is there a composer out there who would like to take on that project?

Here is the summary of Jones’s life, taken from Holy Women, Holy Men:

Absalom Jones was born a house slave in 1746 in Delaware. He taught himself to read out of the New Testament, among other books. When sixteen, he was sold to a store owner in Philadelphia. There he attended a night school for Blacks, operated by Quakers. At twenty, he married another slave, and purchased her freedom with his earnings.

Jones bought his own freedom in 1784. At St. George’s Methodist Episcopal Church, he served as lay minister for its Black membership. The active evangelism of Jones and that of his friend, Richard Allen, greatly increased Black membership at St. George’s. The alarmed vestry decided to segregate Blacks into an upstairs gallery, without notifying them. During a Sunday service when ushers attempted to remove them, the Blacks indignantly walked out in a body.

In 1787, Black Christians organized the Free African Society, the first organized Afro-American society, and Absalom Jones and Richard Allen were elected overseers. Members of the Society paid monthly dues for the benefit of those in need. The Society established communication with similar Black groups in other cities. In 1792, the Society began to build a church, which was dedicated on July 17, 1794.

The African Church applied for membership in the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania on the following conditions: 1, that they be received as an organized body; 2, that they have control over their local affairs; 3, that Absalom Jones be licensed as layreader, and, if qualified, be ordained as minister. In October 1794 it was admitted as St. Thomas African Episcopal Church. Bishop White ordained Jones as deacon in 1795 and as priest on September 21, 1802.

Jones was an earnest preacher. He denounced slavery, and warned the oppressors to “clean their hands of slaves.” To him, God was the Father, who always acted on “behalf of the oppressed and distressed.” But it was his constant visiting and mild manner that made him beloved by his own flock and by the community. St. Thomas Church grew to over 500 members during its first year. Known as “the Black Bishop of the Episcopal Church,” Jones was an example of persistent faith in God and in the Church as God’s instrument.

Additional information about Absalom Jones can be found in the Wikipedia article about him.

"Absalom Jones" by Raphaelle Peale, Delaware Art Museum

How Does the Anglican Communion Office Count?

Anglican Communion News Service announced January 19, 2015, that the Anglican Church of Melanesia adopted the Anglican Covenant at its November General Synod. ACNS noted that Melanesia “is the 12th Province to adopt or subscribe the Covenant.” The story also provided a link to what I take to be the official Anglican Communion Office tally of Covenant acceptances and rejections.

The Living Church dutifully picked up this story two days later under the headline “12th Covenant Affirmation.” Interestingly, Episcopal News Service ignored the development.

As Episcopal Church Convenor and Webmaster for the No Anglican Covenant Coalition, I was naturally interested in the story out of Melanesia. At the very least, I needed to update our own reckoning of decisions about the Covenant in the various Anglican churches.

I had assumed that updating the status table on the No Anglican Covenant Web site would be quick and easy. A little spot checking, however, made me realize that many of our links documenting the progress of actions involving the Covenant were no longer available on the Web. I therefore embarked on the lengthy project of fixing broken links. In most cases, I was able to retrieve a page from the Internet Archive. In a few cases, I had to delete a link or link to a different page. To the best of my knowledge, the No Anglican Covenant Coalition’s status table is now correct and up-to-date.

The Coalition’s tally differs in some significant ways from that of the ACO. Most conspicuously, the Coalition has attempted to document all the steps leading to a final decision on the Covenant, something that is not an objective of the listing on the Anglican Communion Web site. We note the current status of the Covenant in The Episcopal Church, for example, citing two General Convention resolutions, a resolution from a diocese, and three pages documenting resolutions proposed for the 2012 General Convention. The Episcopal Church has not yet made a decision about the Covenant, and this fact is unreported by the ACO. Fine, that’s not the purpose of its listing.

Two omissions from the official list of Covenant decisions are notable, however. Bishops of the Episcopal Church in the Philippines voted against Covenant adoption in May 2011. This has not been especially well documented or explained—but see this story—and we have taken this to be a Covenant rejection. More distressing is the omission of the Church of England’s rejection of the Covenant. There seems to be an unwillingness to admit that the Mother Church of Anglicanism has, in fact, failed to endorse the project so ardently supported by its former Archbishop of Canterbury. No doubt, the rejection of the Covenant by a majority of English dioceses is somehow deemed less than definitive by the ACO. The church could reconsider, after all, but so could a church that has unambiguously adopted the Covenant.

Most distressing, however, is the claim by ACNS that 12 churches have adopted the Covenant. Even counting in the most generous fashion, the Anglican Communion Web page lists only 11 adopters! The Coalition, on the other hand, counts 9 unquestioned adoptions and 2 ambiguous ones. Our listing for the Church of Ireland notes

The Ireland church “subscribed” to the Covenant on 13 May 2011. The General Synod intended to make it clear that the Covenant did not supplant existing governing documents of the Church of Ireland. Source

Is the action taken by the Church of Ireland substantially different from a simple adoption? Who knows? Only time will tell.

Our listing for the Church of the Province of South East Asia is the following:

The church “acceded” to the Covenant and published an explanation of its understanding of the action on 7 May 2011, which seems to go beyond the Covenant text itself.

The South East Asia’s “Preamble to the Letter of Accession” reviews Covenant history and recent Anglican Communion conflicts from a conservative, Global South perspective. It also sets out expectations of churches adopting the Covenant, expectations not contained in the Covenant text itself. Moreover, the Preamble asserts that “our accession to the Anglican Communion Covenant is based” on those extra-covenantal expectations. We therefore believe that South East Asia’s acceptance of the Covenant is conditional.

Even if Ireland and South East Asia are counted as adopters, the page from the ACO shows that only 11 churches, not 12, have adopted the Covenant. A screenshot from the page, on which I have highlighted adoptions in green, rejections in red, and ambiguous adoptions in orange, is shown below. (These are the colors we use on the No Anglican Covenant page.) Click on the image for a larger view. A PDF file showing the entire page, annotated as in the image below, is here.

So, can the minions of the Anglican Communion Office not count, or are they willing to engage in sleight of hand to promote the Covenant? Who knows?

Update, 6/7/2015. The link to the Anglican Communion Office tally of Covenant adoptions has been updated to reflect the current location of the information on the Web.

Ultracrepidarian

I learned a new word the other day—ultracrepidarian. I haven’t yet been able to work it into conversation, but I look forward to doing so. The word describes a person who offers opinions, judgments, etc., beyond his or her expertise. As a noun, it refers to such a person.

Ultracrepidarian is such a great word to describe Republicans who pontificate on subjects such as human reproduction, climate change, or economics. In fact, by extension, I think one might refer to the Republican Party as the ultracrepidarian party.

The Anglican Covenant, Yet Again

The Very Rev. Kelvin Holdsworth
Photo by Gordon Smith. Used by permission.

Kelvin Holdsworth, Provost of St. Mary’s Cathedral in Glasgow, has written an excellent essay lamenting the Church of England’s deal with the Devil that has simultaneously brought women bishops and bishops who believe that God forbids women from having authority over men as permanent fixtures of that church.

On one hand, the Church of England has declared that it is “fully and unequivocally committed to all orders of ministry being open equally to all, without reference to gender.” At the same time, it not only vowed to tolerate those who are unequivocally committed to the view that only males should be ordained but also “committed to enabling them to flourish [emphasis added] within its [the Church of England’s] life and structures.” Once again, in the name of unity, the Church of England has institutionalized internal conflict with the apparent intention to nurture that conflict in perpetuity.

I think the craziness attendant the approval for women bishops in England is, at least in part, the product of establishment. The established church, which views itself as besieged in a sea of indifference, has abandoned its mission of providing moral leadership for the nation in favor of pursuing the quixotic goal of making everybody happy. Hardly anyone is happy.

My purpose here is not really to cover the same ground as Holdsworth. He does an admirable job of pointing out the foolishness of the path being taken by the church to his south. What I want to do instead is to consider the Church of England’s actions with respect to the Anglican Covenant.

For those who have forgotten about the Anglican Covenant or, mercifully, have never heard of it, you can read it here. Various churches of the Anglican Communion have adopted the Covenant; others have rejected it; some have not acted definitively one way or the other. The status of the agreement in the various churches can be found here. The Covenant states that it becomes effective for a church (i.e., binding) upon adoption by that church. No time limit has been imposed on adoption, and it is possible that some churches will defer the adoption decision indefinitely.

The Church of England has rejected the Covenant, though some would dispute the fact. The previous Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, was a strong advocate for the Covenant; Justin Welby, the present Archbishop of Canterbury, not so much. To my knowledge, Archbishop Welby has never mentioned the Covenant in public. He has certainly not promoted its adoption. The Church of England, then, has no obligation to adhere to the requirements of the Covenant. But what if it did?

According to Paragraph 3.2.3 of the Covenant, action by a church that will be controversial, new, or otherwise problematic should be “tested by shared discernment in the life of the Church,” and (according to Paragraph 3.2.4) the church should “seek a shared mind with other Churches, through the Communion’s councils, about matters of common concern.” The Covenant goes on to say that “[e]ach Church will undertake wide consultation with the other Churches of the Anglican Communion and with the Instruments and Commissions of the Communion.” In Paragraph 3.2.5, churches pledge “to act with diligence, care and caution in respect of any action which may provoke controversy,” and in Paragraph 3.2.6, churches are required “in situations of conflict, to participate in mediated conversations, which involve face to face meetings, agreed parameters and a willingness to see such processes through.”

The Church of England did none of this before authorizing women to be consecrated bishops. Moreover, many inside and outside the church, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, saw providing for women bishops as an urgent need. The Covenant-mandated consultation would have taken years, perhaps decades. The Church of England did not need consultation with other Communion churches to determine if its action was going to be controversial. Some Communion churches remain opposed to the ordination of women generally, and unhappiness with the authorization for the consecration of women bishops was expressed both before and after the final steps were taken by the English church. Even in churches that could be expected to celebrate the Church of England’s attempt to treat male and female clergy alike—in The Episcopal Church, in the Anglican Church of Canada, and in the Scottish Episcopal Church, for example—there is surely unhappiness in the manner in which England has institutionalized opposition to a theological position it purports to hold. (This is what Holdsworth expressed so clearly.)

If the entire Anglican Communion had adopted the Anglican Covenant and took it seriously, the Church of England would be in hot water now. Section 4.2 provides for the Standing Committee to request that a church defer a controversial action. Obviously, it is too late for that. After the fact, however, and after widespread consultation, the Standing Committee could recommend that the Church of England be subjected to “relational consequences” (Paragraph 4.2.7) for taking action “incompatible with the Covenant.” Neither of these terms is precisely defined in the text of the Covenant, and their meaning alone would likely be a source of conflict. Widespread discussion of the Church of England’s action would surely lead only to more controversy and chaos in the Communion, rather than any “consensus fidelium” (Paragraph 3.1.4).

Isn’t it time for Anglicans to ask themselves if God would be more pleased if the Anglican Communion focused on policing its member churches to insure that those of Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, England, and the United States articulate an identical theology and ethics, or if churches concentrated on preaching the Gospel to their neighbors, worshiping God, ameliorating human suffering, seeking justice, and protecting our environment? The answer, as the song says, is blowin’ in the wind.

One impetus for writing this essay is the recent news that the Church of the Province of Melanesia adopted the Covenant a couple of months ago. It seems, on one hand, that the time for the Covenant has passed, and many have written it off as dead (or have considered doing so). The passionate essays for and against the pact are no longer forthcoming. Nonetheless, the number of adopters is very slowly increasing, raising the possibility of non-adopters saying “what the hell” and taking the plunge. The effect of Covenant adoption to date, after all, has been precisely nil.

The Covenant was born of an angry pressure-cooker era in which the Anglican primates seemed to be meeting every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. It has now been a while since the primates have met, and, although there have been many angry meetings sponsored by conservative Anglicans, it isn’t clear that the rest of the Communion is paying them much attention. In a recent New York Times interview with Justin Welby, reporter Michael Paulson noted

He [Welby] has declared the Church of England, which he leads, to be declining in numbers and influence, and has deemed the Anglican Communion, where he is viewed as first among equals of bishops around the world, to be so fractured over gender and sexuality that it is not worth trying to meet collectively any time soon.

Welby, I suggest, has figured out that what the Communion really needs is not engagement, but disengagement, exactly the opposite of what the Covenant strives to achieve. Let the churches do mission as they understand it and refrain from trying to correct the perceived errors of one another. The Covenant is not so much about how Communion churches can get along as it is about how they should fight. Why fight to begin with?

Finally, this brings me to the upcoming General Convention of The Episcopal Church, which will be held in Salt Lake City this coming summer. General Convention has a lot on its plate this year. It will be electing a new Presiding Bishop; figuring out what to do with resolutions from the Task Force on Reimagining The Episcopal Church (TREC); considering whether something is to be done about seminary education, which seems to be in crisis; and examining whether, in light of the Bishop Cook debacle, we need to change our procedures for selecting bishops—all this in addition to “normal” business like approving a budget. No one, it seems, is thinking about what our church should be doing with the Anglican Covenant. Frankly, some Covenant opponents think that’s just fine.

I am not among them. Our last General Convention passed a timid resolution asserting that Episcopalians were too divided on the question of Covenant adoption to make a decision at that time. This was a farce. If every issue before the Convention were treated the same way, nothing would ever be passed, since there are always dissenting voices. The reality is that there is no significant enthusiasm in The Episcopal Church for the Covenant, but our pathological Anglican niceness makes it difficult to acknowledge the fact.

We need a 2015 resolution rejecting the Covenant less to protect The Episcopal Church, the church that, along with the Anglican Church of Canada, the militant traditionalists in the Communion love to hate, than to send the message that the Covenant project is destined to fail. If The Episcopal Church decisively rejects the Covenant in 2015, Canada will like follow suit when its General Synod meets in 2016. At that point, the Covenant will be useless, which is much better than malevolent, which it now has the potential to become.

I hope that Episcopalians will realize that they have an obligation vis-à-vis the Covenant and the Communion. General Convention can help save the Communion from the misguided Covenant project and point the Communion back to mission, its real purpose.

One could imagine a General Convention resolution that acknowledges in detail the position in which we find ourselves three years after we ducked rejecting the Covenant in 2012. On the other hand, the resolution proposed by the No Anglican Covenant Coalition would do just fine. You can find it here,

Some Thoughts on Cuba

Cuba and the U.S. have been negotiating terms for the resumption of normal diplomatic relations. I hope the Americans are inclined to be generous. We have acted with malice toward our neighbor to the south for far too long and to no rational purpose other than to indulge the animosities of a few dispossessed Cubans.

What, then, should we be striving for in future U.S.-Cuba relations? Here are a few ideas.

Image from Cuba Travel USA

We should do everything we can to assure the opening of a Cuban embassy in the U.S. One hopes that Cuba will make it easy for us to re-establish our embassy in Havana.

Cuba wants to be off the list of state sponsors of terrorism. Surely, at one time, Cuba sought to export revolution and may have deserved to be on such a list. (Some of the revolution Cuba encouraged was long overdue, but that’s another matter.) I haven’t seen any evidence that Cuba should be on the U.S. list at the moment, and, unless I am greatly mistaken, this is a wish we should grant as soon as possible.

There are, no doubt, commercial claims against the Cuban government. If any damages can be obtained from Cuba, fine, but I don’t think we should expect much. At some point, we simply have to accept facts on the ground. This has largely been our attitude toward native Americans, after all.

The trade embargo should be lifted as soon as possible and tariff barriers should be eliminated. Congress is going to be a stumbling block here, but many businesses that support Republicans are eager to sell goods and services to Cuba. The other problem may be Cuba’s ability to pay. In any case, there is a lot more that Cuba wants from us than we want from Cuba. (Pretty much everything, actually.) From Cuba, we would like to buy cigars, rum, and sugar. We really should be buying sugar from Cuba anyway, as it is a much better place to grow sugarcane than the U.S., which only grows the stuff because our government subsidizes it. (Thank the government for high sugar prices.)

I hope that American firms will be allowed to invest in Cuba. In particular, Cuba needs tourist facilities—hotels, restaurants, etc. Cuba was once a major tourist destination for Americans. It can be so again. Of course, commercial air transport between the two countries is necessary. If flights by American carriers have to be balanced by flights by Cuban carriers, so be it.

We should encourage the development of Cuba’s communication infrastructure, with connections to the outside world, but we should be patient. This will come in time.

Cuba is not happy that refugees fleeing the country are immediately granted asylum if they reach our shores. This is a policy we should rescind. It is curious that those most insistent that we “secure” our borders believe that our border with Cuba should pretty much be open. Our policy is a slap in the face to refugees from South American countries who, in many cases, are fleeing lives at least as burdensome and significantly more dangerous than those experienced by Cubans. Congress will be a problem here. (But isn’t it pretty much a problem generally?)

Finally, we should negotiate the return of the Guantanamo Naval Base to Cuba, being, as it is, the last vestige of American colonialism in the world. (Of course, we conquered and colonized Hawaii, but we made up for it by making the place an American state. We probably don’t want to do that with Cuba.) We can do without Guantanamo. Perhaps we can give them the base if they agree to take the prison with it. That would be a moral victory on two fronts.

Is all this an America-hating, liberal wet dream? Not at all. We can afford to be generous. We have much more to gain than does Cuba. Cuba stands to gain material benefits, but so do Americans. A more open relationship will put pressures on the Castro regime to loosen its grip on, well, pretty much everything. Will Cuba become a liberal democracy next year? Surely not, but if the lives of ordinary Cubans are improved, is not that progress? Besides, Americans will gain access to great cigars.

Update, 1/23/2015. In my original post, I neglected to say anything about the U.S. unhappiness with Cuba’s human rights record. We are apparently going to finesse that issue for now. Realistically, nothing much is going to happen on the human rights front anytime soon. To insist otherwise would be pointless.

While reading the current issue of Time, I ran into this sentence: “China is Cuba’s largest trade partner and its biggest creditor, but normalized relations with the U.S. could open the door to game-changing moves between Havana and Washington.” I mention the China connection only because it’s interesting. Make of it what you will. (The Time article is here.)

Countering the State of the Union Address

President Barack Obama delivers his State of the Union address tonight. As has become customary, the Republican Party—or should I say the Republic Party, to mirror the standard slur against Democrats from the party of the rich and the clueless—will be given the opportunity to dispute everything the President has to say. Whereas in recent years there was a single Republican response, there have lately been several, reflecting the full diversity of the Loyal Opposition—wacky, demented, and stark-raving bonkers. Wacky is represented this year by freshman Iowa Republican Senator Joni Ernst, who will, not doubt, be taking her symbolic knife to the President’s symbolic private parts. (See Steve Benen’s comments on the MaddowBlog.)

Why do the Republicans get the chance to dispute the President’s message on national television anyway? The Constitution requires that the Chief Executive report to the country on the state of the Union, but it says nothing of giving equal time to dissenting opinions. Republicans may be interviewed after a presidential news conference, but opposing politicians are not given free air time to say anything they choose. And why don’t other parties get to make a national address cutting into our prime-time viewing? Where is the Green Party response? The Communist Party response? 

Actually, the Greens are planning their own response on the Web. I don’t think the Communists are planning anything similar, but it seems they may simply be satisfied with what the President has to say. (See their current action items here.)

If the Republicans or any other party wants to address the nation after the President’s speech, I think they should buy time. Isn’t that the free enterprise way?

Of course, Republicans have a particular need to respond quickly to President Obama. Unless they are immediately told that what he says is wrongheaded, grassroots Republicans might be swayed by Mr. Obama’s logic and rhetoric. Since most of the party base will be watching Fox News, this is a minor concern, but some people may have simply kept the television on the channel of whatever program they were watching before the State of the Union address. That channel might not have been Fox News.

The Missionary Society (Again)

The Episcopal Church Office of Public Affairs released “Report to the Church 2015” on January 9. The press release announcing the new publication described the 200-page Adobe Flash document as “an innovative online magazine detailing the mission and ministry, accomplishments and achievements of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society during the current triennium.”

The Report

“Report” contains text, graphics, and a good deal of video, and its production was clearly a major project. Its size is daunting, particularly since it contains neither table of contents nor index. Moreover, readers may find the format inconvenient. (One cannot easily copy text from the document, for example.) A PDF version can be downloaded from the menu bar above the page images, but be warned—the PDF file is about 77 MB in length.

The characterization of “Report” as a magazine is curious, as there is no indication that it is a periodical, and it contains none of the boilerplate one expects in a magazine. There is no publication date and no indication of authorship. There is not even a title page! Perhaps the intention is to produce such a report every three years six months or so before the General Convention meets.

A bit more than half of “Report” is organized around the Five Marks of Mission. The remainder of the document is an appendix that lists activities by diocese. The casual observer might imagine that “Report” is a summary of Episcopal Church accomplishments in the current triennial, a feel-good piece in an age of cynicism, declining membership, and fiscal retrenchment. It is nothing of the sort.

“Report to the Church 2015” is actually 200-page advertisement for the church’s administrative bureaucracy, an advertisement that the Office of Public Affirs generously notes “can be downloaded at no charge.” (“815” has increasingly become the target of deputy dissatisfaction, not least because of the apparent incompetence attending the adoption of a budget at the last two General Conventions.) The response of management has been to cloak the Episcopal Church Center in the mantle of the Five Marks of Mission and to style the bureaucracy as the “Missionary Society.”

In the aforementioned press release, Chief Operating Officer Stacy Sauls is quoted as saying

We’re in the midst of trying to create a change in the culture of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society—toward being a service organization supporting and contributing to mission at the local level and away from being a regulatory agency.

The “regulatory agency” charge is something of a bum rap, but it captures the perception of many and is not without some justification. It is certainly true that the churchwide administration was much less helpful than it might have been when the Diocese of Pittsburgh was being undermined by its subsequently deposed bishop, Robert Duncan. Thus, I have my own dissatisfactions with 815. Nonetheless, there are churchwide functions that need to be performed, and they are frequently under-appreciated. (The Rev. Nathaniel W. Pierce’s recent essay on Episcopal Café, “What is the job description of the Church Center?” provides useful perspective.)

No doubt, the move toward a more deliberately service-oriented churchwide administration has resulted in part from a defensive concern for self-preservation. I believe the change is real, however, and should be welcomed. Its effectiveness, though, at least for the moment, is an open question.

The Missionary Society

What is upsetting about “Report”—aside from the contemplation of how much it must have cost to produce—is the use of the term “Missionary Society.” That name began cropping up about a year and a half ago. I wrote about this phenomenon in “The Missionary Society” in October 2013, an essay I strongly recommend you read before proceeding. (I will offer some essentials from that post here.) When I wrote “The Missionary Society,” it was clear that something was being re-branded, though it was not clear just what. I thought that perhaps an attempt was being made to re-brand the church itself, taking advantage of the popular buzzwords “mission,” “missional,” and “missionary.” At Pittsburgh’s annual convention that November, Anne Rudig, who had been designated as Pittsburgh’s primary contact person at the Episcopal Church Center, declared, “I work for the Missionary Society of the Episcopal Church.” (See “Observations on the Diocesan Convention (Part 2).”) It should have been clear that it was the administrative bureaucracy of The Episcopal Church—“815,” if you will—that was beginning to be referred to as the Missionary Society.

Now for some of the promised background. In its early days, The Episcopal Church was struggling to figure out how to extend into newly settled areas of the country and to pursue missionary efforts abroad. In 1821, the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America (DFMS) was created for the purpose. Initially, the DFMS was financed by subscription. It was eventually incorporated in the State of New York and, by canon, included all Episcopalians as members and was governed by Executive Council. Since neither the General Convention nor The Episcopal Church is incorporated, the DFMS has served as a kind of holding company that exists solely to conduct the financial affairs of the church. (Additional details of the convoluted history of the DFMS are to be had in my post “The Missionary Society,” cited above.)

Two points need to be understood. First, had the General Convention (or perhaps The Episcopal Church) been incorporated, we would have no need of the DFMS today. Second, it was recognized long before the present day that all Episcopalians share in the project of gospel mission and were therefore incorporated into the DFMS by canon.

Let me now return to “Report” On page 5, under the heading “WHAT IS the MISSIONARY SOCIETY?,” we find the following:

The Missionary Society is the people—the Presiding Bishop and staff members—who serve The Episcopal Church by working to support, equip, and empower all Episcopalians engaged in mission and ministry at a local level, wherever that may be, around the world.

The Missionary Society explains both the content of our work and the values that drive it. The Missionary Society communicates that the Church exists for the purpose of mission, and that the staff exists to support and serve Episcopalians engaged in mission locally and around the world.

The terms “Missionary Society,” “Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society,” and “Episcopal Church” all occur with some frequency in “Report,” and one suspects that any conflation of these terms is not totally unintentional. In particular, Bishops Sauls and Jefferts Schori seem intent on subtly taking advantage of the existence of the DFMS to re-brand 815 as the Missionary Society. (Workers at the Episcopal Church Center are paid from a DFMS account, of course, so it is not much of a stretch to say, as Anne Rudig did, that they work for the Missionary Society.)

This change in nomenclature evolved by degrees (or was rolled out by degrees, rather like the boiling of the mythical frog in the slowly warmed saucepan). The Missionary Society was first described as a program or strategy. For example, in September 2013, the page on the Episcopal Church Web site labeled “The Missionary Society” contained this paragraph (see capture in the Internet Archive here):

The Missionary Society is a strategy [emphasis added] for achieving our common purpose, building partnerships throughout the Church to engage God’s mission to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ.

That same paragraph—see page here—now reads

The Missionary Society refers to the staff serving The Episcopal Church worldwide. It works to achieve our common purpose, building partnerships throughout the Church to engage God’s mission to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ.

There are several thing wrong with the above description of the Missionary Society. First, if the term is meant simply to be a cooler name for the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, it rather misses the mark. The Executive Council, which acts as the board for the DFMS is not church staff, but seems excluded from the definition of the Missionary Society. Moreover, if a simple renaming is taking place, it is simply wrong. Ordinary Episcopalians are members of the DFMS but are not mention on The Missionary Society page of the church Web site. Staff members who are not Episcopalians—surely there are some—are clearly not members of the Missionary Society if the society is equated with the DFMS.

A more serious issue is the fact that the church administration is pursuing an advertising campaign intended to create goodwill for itself and, I suspect, keep the Episcopal Church Center in New York City, where many think its operation is too expensive and too insular. The new message from 815 is “We’re the Missionary Society, and we’re here to help.” I am willing to grant that there is indeed a new commitment to supporting those of us in the hinterlands, but calling churchwide staff the Missionary Society detracts from the from the missionary intentions and competencies of provinces, diocese, and parishes. In fact, some would argue that one of the problems with 815 is that it is too much its own society; calling it the Missionary Society isn’t very helpful here. In the effort to reimagine The Episcopal Church, many Episcopalians are looking for more decentralization. The notion of the Missionary Society, however, seems to concentrate wisdom and competence regarding mission in New York City.

On page 73 of “Report,” one finds a sentence that exhibits what is profoundly wrong with the message being sent: “We’re eager to hear your ideas and to count you as a partner of the
Missionary Society.” In other words, the Missionary Society is on top of things, and we’d like to have you come along.

It is time to find another name for the Episcopal Church Center—why not “Episcopal Church Center,” by the way?—other than the defective “Missionary Society.”

Finally, I must mention that the Task Force on Reimagining The Episcopal Church (TREC), in its final report, proposes to amend the canon defining the DFMS. As best as I can tell, TREC has not bought into the Missionary Society thing, but its proposed revision to Canon I.3 contains at least two surprises. First, it renames the DFMS, eliminating “of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America.” I can get only so excited about this, though the change hardly seems necessary. More significantly, however, the proposal (Resolution A009) eliminates the provision that all members of the church are members of the DFMS. In fact, Resolution A009 indicates who the officers of the DFMS are, but fails to say who the non-officers are. This seems a mindless oversight, but it plays into the program to glorify the churchwide staff. Like much of the final TREC report, Resolution A009 would benefit from more discussion and clear thinking.

Manhunt?

In recent days, I have repeatedly heard news organizations refer to the search for Hayat Boumeddiene, as a “manhunt.” Boumeddiene, of course, is the woman associated with the gunmen who terrorized Paris last week.

Apparently, law enforcement does not yet have a gender-neutral equivalent of “manhunt” or even a feminine analogue. Should we be using “womanhunt,” “personhunt,” or “humanhunt”? Stay tuned while the language catches up.

Hayat Boumeddiene

Je Suis Charlie

How Should We Refer to God?

Yesterday’s sermon at my church referred to God a lot. Although the word “God” was frequently mentioned, no masculine pronoun was used to refer to the Christian deity. This was frankly annoying. A sentence like “God loves God’s people” sounds foreign to a native speaker of English. Moreover, the construction suggests to a “normal” person that two distinct entities, not one, are being talked about.

The reluctance to use masculine pronouns to refer to God is feminist political correctness run amuck. It is part of a program to eliminate “sexist” language, not only in sermons and theological discussion, but even in the prayer book liturgy. Doubtless, many avoid the use of masculine pronouns for God with self-righteous satisfaction, but one does have to wonder if they’ve thought this affectation through.

The most obvious reason to use pronouns idiomatically, rather than repeating forms of “God,” is that the latter practice sounds very odd. A major innovation of the Reformation was the recitation of the liturgy in the vernacular. Avoiding pronouns where they would normally be expected runs counter to the objective of making liturgy accessible. Instead, it just sounds goofy. Linguistic conventions do change over time, and even liturgy must adapt to change, but using language that no one uses in ordinary speech isn’t helpful or welcoming.

For Episcopalians, there is a more significant matter at issue. Our prayer book is supposed to be a book of common prayer. When large numbers of people in a congregation regularly make a substitution like “God’s” for “his” (as in “And blessed be his kingdom, now and for ever,” on p. 355), it can be jarring to others. Some, particularly visitors, may feel like they didn’t get the secret memo. Others may feel that the congregation is violating the social contract that fixes the liturgy until such time as the church’s General Convention, through its laborious revision process, decides to change it. We have a set liturgy to avoid unnecessary fights between prayer book revisions. We should take advantage of the fact.

It is bad enough when individual members of a congregation substitute “God’s” for “his.” It is a more serious offense when, in a printed service, the church itself makes such a substitution, as my own church is wont to do.

One of the joys of The Episcopal Church is the ability to visit any congregation and feel at home with the familiar liturgy. Unexpected and unauthorized variation can be exceedingly off-putting. An experience is burned in my memory of visiting what was clearly a conservative, evangelical Episcopal church. The sermon was not to my liking, but I felt comfortable with the overall service. Then came the dismissal, to which the congregation responded with one voice (though without mine) “Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” What followed “God” is hardly objectionable in the abstract—it comes from 1 Corinthians 15:57—but, not being in the prayer book, it was supremely alienating. I suddenly felt like an unwelcome intruder in the congregation. I can hardly complain about evangelical Episcopalians straying from the reservation, however, if liberals engage in similar practices.

Of course, the feminists would be right in arguing that God has no sex, in the human sense. And they even have a point in arguing that the portrayal of God as masculine is part and parcel of society’s patriarchal bias that regularly slights half the human species. The notion of God as father is deeply ingrained in the Bible, though, and it is difficult to ignore Jesus’ use of “my father.” The feminists are bucking a very strong trend.

The substitution of, say, “God’s” for “his,” hardly achieves gender neutrality. “God” naturally seems masculine, since there exists another word for a feminine analogue, namely “goddess.” A bit of modern theological education might lead one to think of God as sexless, but the reality is that the English language does not contain a specific word for a sexless deity. If “God” suggests masculinity in one’s mind, eschewing masculine pronouns and repeating forms of “God” really doesn’t accomplish much.

I’m not an anthropologist, but, for what it’s worth, my impression is that nearly all cultures attribute gender to their deities. That, too, seems deeply ingrained.

I really don’t see much of a solution to the feminist “problem.” If God is neither male nor female (or even male and female) and we want to acknowledge that in our speech, three not-completely-satisfactory approaches come to mind. It does seem to be true that masculine pronouns used with the word “God” tend to emphasize the maleness of the deity. One alternative would be to use feminine pronouns (“And blessed be her kingdom, now and for ever.”) This, perhaps, bends over backward a bit too far and seems slightly schizophrenic.

A second alternative would be use grammatically grating plural pronouns (“And blessed be their kingdom, now and for ever.”) This is akin to the use of the plural in cases where sex cannot be determined, as in “A pilot is in charge of their plane.” (Personally, I don’t like this construction, but saying “his or her” or “him or her” all the time is tiresome.) The doctrine of the Trinity both justifies this locution and operates against it. If we want to refer only to the first person of the Trinity, use of a plural pronoun is confusing.

Finally, there is the logical solution—use neuter pronouns (“And blessed be its kingdom, now and for ever.”) This makes sense at one level, but people—and not just feminists—will argue that it depersonalizes God. The point is well taken.

As I said earlier, I don’t see a fully satisfactory solution to the feminist “problem.” It may be a matter best left to the theologians and liturgists, however.

Episcopal Café Performance Improves

“Sluggish” was hardly adequate to characterize the abysmal performance of Episcopal Café when the new site was rolled out nearly three weeks ago. More than one friend expressed the view that continued reading of the blog was more trouble than it was worth. When I complained to editor Jon White about the interminable waits for stories to appear, he indicated that neither he nor members of the Episcopal Café team were encountering the same problem. I was concerned that the blog would never be as useful as it had been in its former incarnation.

Lately, however, performance has greatly improved. I again wrote to Jon and asked what had  changed, but I received no reply.

Anyway, because I complained so much about the poor performance of Episcopal Café, I thought it necessary to acknowledge the improvement, even if the Episcopal Café team never admitted that there was a problem to be solved.

Anyone who has given up on the blog, should give it another try. The user experience, though flashier than strictly necessary, is reasonably satisfying. And The Lead continues to provide news of the Episcopal/Anglican world that is not otherwise available in one place. My previous posts about Episcopal Café (here and here) can be helpful in learning how to navigate the new site.

Happy reading! It’s good to have a serviceable Episcopal Café back.

Curve-stitch Experiment 2

I posted a curve-stitch design a few days ago that I thought had interesting properties. A slight modification of the design yields the image below. I cannot decide which is more satisfying.

Click on image for a larger view.

Curve-stitch Experiment

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Click on image for a larger view.

Update, 12/15/2014: I posted a related design on 12/13/2014. You can view it here.

More Episcopal Café Mysteries

Although I have not been trying systematically to discover everything odd or simply wrong with the re-designed Episcopal Café, I do keep running into quirks. (See my last post “Probing the Mysteries of Episcopal Café” and my comments on the site’s welcome post.)

First, I should note that a couple of my early complaints have been addressed. The original background image, a purple field of a repeated geometric pattern, about which I was not the only person to complain, has been changed to a solid color. At first, it became a garish purple, but it has now been transformed to a demure, Episcopalian purple. Thanks for that. I do wonder if the new background is permanent or whether it is the background color of the Café for Advent.

Also, the Café logo now has the proper accent on the “e” of “Café.” (See image above.) I would have separated the two words in the logo with a bit more vertical space, but at least the spelling is correct now. The accent is missing in other places, however, most noticeably in the categories list and in the heading “Please support the Cafe” in the sidebar, and on the Support the Cafe page.

Now for some features I have not mentioned heretofore. As best as I can remember, all posts on the old site indicated who had posted it. The poster was not necessary the author, but it was useful to know who had thought the post worthy of attention. The new site is inconsistent in this regard. For example, “Church of England to push BP & Shell towards a low-carbon economy” carries no indication of authorship. “The Magazine: Not the Secret Gnosis—An interview with the leadership of St [sic] Gregory’s of Nyssa, San Francisco” indicates an author below the title, though it isn’t clear whether the author is the poster. “Formalizing a bad idea” shows both the poster and subsequent updater at the bottom of the post. It would be good if the new site consistently indicated who posted an item.

Another missing feature, sort of, is the ability to link to a particular comment. Well, one can do that, but how is something of a mystery. On many sites, the time stamp on a post or comment is a link to that item. This works on Facebook, for example, and on my own blog. Comments on Episcopal Café carry a date but not a time, and the date is not a link. “Reply” under the date is a link. It takes the reader to the desired comment, but with a reply form below it. This isn’t terrible—one can still see the comment in its original context—but it is odd. If, on a particular comment, the “Reply” button is a link to http://www.episcopalcafe.com/welcome-to-episcopal-cafe-2-0-2/?replytocom=44544#respond, the proper link to the comment in context but without the reply form is http://www.episcopalcafe.com/welcome-to-episcopal-cafe-2-0-2/#comment-44549. I doubt such a link will be used very often because it isn’t at all obvious what the proper form is.

It is oddly annoying that, on the home page of the site, the sidebar does not appear. One has to load a particular post for the sidebar to be shown.

Finally, as one commenter noted, the Subscribe to RSS Feed button works differently in Firefox, Chrome, and Internet Explorer, and, in Chrome, it is virtually unusable.

Probing the Mysteries of Episcopal Café

As many readers surely know, Episcopal Café has been redesigned. There were several reasons for updating the collection of Episcopal blogs, but the most pressing was probably that the software underlying the site was no longer being supported.

The new site is more attractive than the old, but, like any newly designed Web site, it has its teething problems that will take some time to work out. The first problem that I noticed, for example, was that “Café” had lost the acute accent on the “e.” (See logo above. I am told this problem is being fixed.) Other issues are more problematic. Additionally, the site is organized differently, and that organization can be confusing if you don’t understand it.

The most serious problem is one of performance. It can take a long time for a story to appear. This may be related to the animation that serves up one story at a time. This animation is cute, but the price paid for it may be too high. Anyway, when one clicks on a link—on a Continue link, say—to see a complete story, it may take a long time for the story to appear. I did this on a story last night, and, by morning, the story had still not shown up. Sometimes the story seems to appear and disappear in an instant. Sometimes a mouse click can reproduce this behavior. I tried viewing “Right Now Jesus Can’t Breathe” and clicked my mouse in a space that should have contained the story. To my amazement, a picture showed up. It was a picture in the (invisible) story, suggesting that the story was there but not there. (Can you say Schrödinger’s cat?) Anyway, I discovered that, if you are waiting for a story to appear, scrolling down a few lines can make it visible. This behavior is a serious bug, but knowing the workaround makes the site at least usable.

The old Episcopal Café presented as a collection of blogs. To the casual observer, the new site seems to have the same organization, with several blogs having been collected in something called “The Magazine.” If you were to think the new organization a minor variation of the old, however, you would be wrong. The old blogs have actually disappeared. All stories are now organized into categories (e.g., The Lead) and further characterized with tags (e.g., News reports or legal).

Even if you understand the use of categories and tags, navigation can be confusing. Clicking on “The Lead” in the banner or the sidebar (under “Categories”) will bring up only stories in that category. Scrolling down makes more and more stories appear until, at the bottom of the page, you can select the next page of older stories or go to the last page. The good news here is that all the stories from the old site are still available. (But see below.)

What is confusing is this: At the bottom of each story are arrows to take the reader to the previous or next story. What is not immediately obvious, however, is that clicking on one of these arrows may take you to a story in a different category. What would be helpful would be up and down arrows to take you to the next and previous stories in the same category.

Finally, there is the problem of finding a story if you only know the title or the old URL. There is no search function provided for the site, so searching by title is impossible. Eventually, Google will, no doubt, fully index the site, but this is unhelpful now. A Google search may yield an old URL, but, alas, the new page addresses are different. If you know the title (or something close to the title) but can’t remember whether it was in The Lead or Daily Episcopalian, good luck! Actually, if you can find the old URL through Google, you can narrow your search.

I am the principal editor of the news blog Pittsburgh Update, which summaries Anglican news of particular interest to people of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh Update has frequently linked to stories at the Café, usually stories in The Lead. Many of these links are now broken.

What I have discovered is that, if you have a link to the old site, it may actually work, or you may be able to figure out what the new link is. For example, here is an old link:

http://www.episcopalcafe.com/lead/anglican_communion/its_the_end_of_the_world_as_we.html

The title of the story is “It’s the end of the world as we know it.” On the new site, the blog name and the tag (in this case, “lead/anglican_communion/” are dropped. Also, the “.html” at the end gets stripped off. This actual URL is

http://www.episcopalcafe.com/its_the_end_of_the_world_as_we_know_it/

but the old one works, too! I don’t know why some pages are redirected but others are not. In any case, the part of the old URL that derives from the story title is usually pretty similar, but often not identical, to the corresponding part of the new URL. Consider the story “Clergy call out Ft. Lauderdale mayor on false feeding site claims,” whose old URL is

http://www.episcopalcafe.com/lead/news_reports/clergy_call_out_ft_lauderdale_2.html

Both this URL and the URL found by removing the blog, tag, and HTML suffix give a page-not-found error. The proper new URL is

http://www.episcopalcafe.com/clergy_call_out_ft_lauderdale_mayor_on_false_feeding_site_claims/

Go figure.

One strategy that can be used to find a page is to filter by tag. From the old URL, we know that our Fort Lauderdale story has the tag “news reports.” This tag can be found under “Tags” in the sidebar, where individual tags are links. Clicking on “News reports” takes the reader to

http://episcopalcafe.com/tag/news-reports/

which displays stories with that tag. Without a date, however, the reader may have to embark on a long linear search.Good luck with that.

Most of the problems of finding old stories could be solved by including a search box on the site. This would not be the most convenient way to find an old story from a title or URL, but it would work in a pinch.

I hope this has helped people navigate the new Episcopal Café. Stay tuned; I’m sure things will get better.

Thanksgiving

It’s time for the annual posting of my poem “Thanksgiving,” which I wrote in 2002. (Details can be found on my Web site here.) May all my readers have a blessed and happy Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving

by Lionel Deimel

So many holidays for this and that— But most are just a time for recreation, Not opportunities for celebration Or contemplation of their origins. Who gives a thought to Martin Luther King? He’s on our minds his day like any other, When seldom do we think who is our brother Or bother reaching out to those in need. We see a baseball game on 4 July— We sing our anthem, watch the color guard; But Revolutionary thoughts are hard To mix with scorecard, chili dog, and beer. The labor on our minds on Labor Day Is but our own that we don’t have to do. We must instead to summer bid adieu With picnics for a special few, or bed. Ah, Christmas is a special time of dread— That deadline of the frantic shopping season Through which we march for half-forgotten reason That escapes us fully when the day has come. Thanksgiving, though, is different from the rest— We gather in our family and friends; We stuff the turkey and each person who attends, And, in the end, how can we not be thankful?

A Concise Summary of the GTS Debacle

Kim Bobo has written a concise summary of the disaster that is the situation at The General Seminary, a subject I have written about before. (See posts here, here, here, and here.) The title of the essay on the Religion Dispatches Web site is “GTS Situation Is Just a Typical Labor Dispute…But with Clergy,” which suggest the author’s viewpoint (with which I agree, by the way). I particularly appreciate this paragraph:

The Board of Directors [Trustees, actually]  had backed itself into a terrible corner and few of us like to admit we are wrong. This is especially true for many clergy and bishops who believe they are not only right but empowered by God in their rightness. (Ask any union organizer who has negotiated with a religious hospital.)

Anyway, I highly recommend the Bobo essay, which can be found here. The facts seem pretty much right, although there is no mention of the reconciliation process being managed by the Lombard Mennonite Peace Center.