Washington National Cathedral

Editor Note: At a special Sunday Forum on August 9, 2009, Cathedral Dean Samuel T. Lloyd III, the Rev. Canon Carol L. Wade (the Cathedral’ precentor), and the Rev. Canon Stephen Huber (Cathedral Vicar) discussed the work of the 2009 General Convention of the Episcopal Church, held in July in Anaheim, California. All three attended the convention. They also addressed questions raised from those attending the forum.

Sam Lloyd: Welcome, everybody. It’s been quite a few weeks since we’ve had a forum—I’ve missed you all. It’s nice to have you back, even for this kind of ad-hoc, specially called forum. We’re going to keep this pretty informal. You’re going to get some reports from various ones of us who have been involved with the General Convention and with the church in different ways. Some background, some framing comments; a report on the convention itself and what happened there, what the key themes were, what an array of issues happened to be, that they wrestled with. And then we’re going to focus, of course, on the sexuality resolutions that were passed: resolutions affecting the role of the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion in relation to the challenges of sexuality in this period of the Church’s life.

So we’ll go through those steps one by one. The big picture of the convention, then what happened, then to the sexuality decisions and something about the impact of those decisions as we see it right now on the Anglican Communion, and the challenges that presents for us. Then, we’ll open the floor for questions from you all.

I’m going to begin by saying a little bit about what a General Convention is, how it does its business and what it means to us and how that makes us different from a lot of other churches, a lot of other denominations and communities around the world.

The striking thing about General Convention is that the General Convention is our polity, in a way. It embodies everything that the Anglican Church, in North America, has ended up taking shape to express. General Convention is the one policy-making, canon-making, resolution-making body for the Episcopal Church. There is no other. There is no primate; even our presiding bishop, who is authorized to speak on behalf of the Episcopal Church. When she speaks, she speaks on behalf of General Convention and on behalf of the expressed understandings of the Episcopal Church in General Convention.

This goes back to the roots of Anglicanism in America. In 1785, as our nation was beginning to claim its independence after a very tough war, one of the other things that began to happen, as our government began to take shape, was the Episcopal Church, which consisted at that point—well, there was no Episcopal Church. Anglican churches in North America came together—representatives came together—and began to think about what Anglicanism ought to look like in this new nation that so valued democracy, participation, the voice of absolutely everyone, a non-hierarchical approach to leadership, and to understanding how the world should work, and for us as Christians to understand how God’s speaking to us through the Spirit should work.

And so, out of that, General Convention, beginning in 1785 and going the next few years, they created this triennial convention, meeting once every three years. This model, in some ways is a lot like our Congress: there are two houses, it’s a bicameral legislature, both houses have to vote the same resolution for it to take effect. One was the House of Bishops, and all the bishops in the Episcopal Church have a vote in the House of Bishops. The other house is the House of Deputies, which consists both of clergy and laity. Each diocese gets to send four clergy and four laity. They all sit by diocese but often, the laity and clergy sit together, as well, within each delegation. They are specifically not delegates, but deputies. The distinction there is that deputies come, not to represent a set of views from back home and to speak those views as in the House of Representatives, but to be deputies sent from there to vote their own conscience; to listen and pray and participate in the General Convention in this massive act of discernment, where people come together—thousands of them, together—to listen to God’s calling, to what God might be saying, and what happens at General Convention, we believe, is the church is discerning the call of the Spirit as it comes together.

So, every three years, there is this great convergence on some city in America. It was Anaheim this year, it was Columbus three years ago, it was Minneapolis three years before that. It moves around; it’s a huge convention. I guess that makes about a thousand people in the House of Deputies, where Carol spent so much time. Around a thousand in the House of Deputies and House of Bishops put together. A huge number, but on top of that, there are members of commissions, committees, there are visitors, there are people representing different interests and concerns in the life of the Church. Often, at the major services, there are several thousand, as many as ten thousand come to one of these events. They’re huge events; they go on for about ten days. It’s the Episcopal Church in all its grandeur. It feels like all the life of the Church is packed into the convention center at one time.

So, just a few more specific things: the presiding bishop chairs the House of Bishops. The presiding bishop actually comes from a long time ago, when we did not have a primate, someone who was symbolically our leader, but we had one bishop among the group chosen to convene and lead the House of Bishops. Of course, Katharine Jefferts Schori is the presiding bishop and primate now. And then, the House of Deputies elects its own president, now Bonnie Anderson is president of the House of Deputies, and that, too, is a very significant position as you can imagine. She is chairing this group that represents the clergy and laity of every diocese in the country, coming together to participate in this discernment. The House of Bishops and the House of Deputies decided what needs to be debated, and then voted on and proved in both houses.

There are some details about how the voting happened, but I don’t think that pertains now. Let me say something a few other things about the feel of a convention. I’ve never been a deputy myself, but I’ve gone to most of them over the last twenty years or so. They are enormously exciting places to be. Walking into what they call the “Exhibit Hall,” it’s quite thrilling. It’s a grand hall where everybody who wants to try to sell something related to the Church, and everyone who has a cause, and every seminary, and every national cathedral, has some representation there, because they’re telling their story. This is the most intense gathering the Episcopal Church has once every three years. A chance to tell people who you are and what you’re about and what you’re trying to do and why people should support you in what you’re doing.

There are also a lot of receptions. Every seminary, every major group, just about, will have a dinner or a reception. There was a National Cathedral reception in Anaheim in one of the hotels where we invited all the bishops, all the deans, and a lot of friends of the Cathedral whom we had identified either out there at the convention or who were living in that part of California, to come have a glass of wine with us and talk about what’s happening at the Cathedral, and simply be with each other as friends of the Cathedral itself.

I was there as a visitor, Steve Huber was there as a visitor, John Peterson was there as well. And Carol Wade was one of the two—for the last three years—one of the two chaplains to the House of Bishops, so she’s been working closely with them as they meet three times a year, and then working very closely on the planning on the liturgies for General Convention itself. So, she is deeply immersed in the House of Bishops’ deliberations every step of the way, so she can speak from the inside about her sense of what it was like to be with the House of Bishops as they were discerning some important questions.

I think I’m going to stop there—that’s the big picture. Let me just say one more thing. What I’ve just described is what makes it hard for some parts of the Anglican Communion itself to understand us, and in some ways, for us to understand them. In particular, many parts—in fact, probably most parts—of the Communion still have a much more hierarchical decision-making process. In a lot of provinces around the world, what the bishop says goes. It’s not true in England, but it is often true. Even in England, bishops are not elected; bishops are chosen through an appointment process involving the Crown and the Church working together—a very old-fashioned way of doing it.

What that means is in difficult times in the Anglican Communion—we’re going to get some context on the Anglican Communion in the next few minutes—in difficult times, some assumptions are made. For example, why can’t the presiding bishop just knock this church into shape? Tell us what to do; why is there all this chaotic pulling to and fro, and why are people doing things they’re not supposed to do? Why are churches and dioceses not doing what they are expected to do? Well, it’s because we have this rich, conversational discernment process with none of the authority resting in one particular person and one particular place, but in a convention that seeks to discern God’s will, and we believe also in dioceses where that same process is going on. It doesn’t mean there aren’t some checks and balances; there should be some accountability and there is, but it’s nothing like the hierarchical process that happens, for example, in the Roman Catholic tradition, but also in a number of other parts of the Anglican Communion itself.

I’m going to stop there and turn it over to Carol, who is going to talk some about the whole feel and progress of this particular convention.

Carol Wade: Thanks, Sam. OK, so first, Sam was right, I wore several hats at General Convention. I did services as chaplain to the House of Bishops and also created and produced worship every day. So, first of all I want to speak about what our day-to-day life was like at convention, and how it was shaped. So, long ago, it was decided that there would be a theme for this year’s Convention, and that theme was ubuntu. It’s an African concept, and it’s a theology that has been developed by Desmond Tutu. It’s quite simple conceptually, and yet not very easy, I think, to live out.

Ubuntu essentially means “I am because we are.” I am because we are. I can only become a whole person in relationship to others; in relationship to Steve. It’s about radical interdependence. It’s simply about being human. Now, it’s something that he Africans take to quite easily; but for us Westerners, with our radical need for autonomy, this is not such an easy concept for us. So it was, needless to say, a wonderful way to think about doing this very difficult work of Convention, to always be thinking about our neighbor, and how our relationships and how we spoke to each other and the things we thought, the decisions we made, how we would affect one another.

So, a little bit more about ubuntu. Desmond Tutu tells us that a person who has ubuntu, he says, are welcoming, they are hospitable, they are vulnerable, they’re open to others, they’re wiling to share and be available to others. They don’t feel threatened by another person’s gifts or their skills, but rather it helps them to be empowered to use those skills and gifts and graces. And a person who has ubuntu loves to see the goodness in people and sort of tease that out in their neighbor.

A person with ubuntu also knows, for instance, when I am diminished, so too are you diminished. When someone across the world is oppressed, so too are we oppressed. And that it’s good to be successful, but it’s not good to be competitive in order to be successful—that we shouldn’t be, sort of nipping at others’ heels in order to be a good, healthy and strong and vibrant church.

So, there we are. So ubuntu essentially tells us that our relationships are very sacred, and they demand our vigilance, and that because I’m human, I belong, I share, and I participate. So, how did we participate, then, in this Convention? Well, we gathered at the invitation of the diocese of Los Angeles for eleven days of worship, of learning, and of policy-making. Worship was key to the General Convention. In preparation for that worship, I was given an opportunity to think through this concept of ubuntu, and I thought it would be helpful to create a theme for each day.

So, we decided to take ubuntu, and some sort of sub-theme from it, and unpack that each day and let that frame all of our conversations each day. So the first day was ubuntu and the body of Christ, meaning ubuntu as, looking at our baptism as the sole source of our identity. The second day was ubuntu and belonging to God, knowing that God longs to be in relationship to us. The third day was ubuntu and belonging to each other. That was the day the Archbishop of Canterbury was with us, and offered meditation at our worship—at our Eucharist. So we thought a lot about, what does it mean to be a neighbor in the Communion and a neighbor in the global community?

The fourth day was ubuntu and hospitality; it happened to be a feast day of St. Benedict. And on that day we looked at the rule of Benedict and how we are called to listen to each other, and how Benedict raises up the youngest in the community, and says, the youngest person often has a sort of wisdom, that we need to be very careful to listen to. And on the fifth day, we looked at ubuntu and mission. And that, day five, is the big day of Convention where 8,000 people gather to worship and pray and celebrate together, and to give thanks for the United Thank Offering. Those offerings—I don’t know if you have ever dropped coins into your little blue UTO box, but if not, I hope you’ll get one and participate in this going forward. Those coins are collected in this Convention and are dispersed for missions across the globe.

As we turned the corner into day five, we looked at ubuntu in action. Ubuntu and domestic poverty, the next day we looked at the MDG, the Millenium Development Goals, and then on day eight we looked at careful creation, day nine we looked at evangelism, and day ten was another feast day in our cycle, and that was the feast day of William White, and he was the first presiding bishop for the organizing General Convention. and he himself presided over a very unruly, a very chaotic time, and was known for his ability to be reasonable and to be a peacemaker within these tumultuous times. So, it was a very fitting close to our time at General Convention.

So, if ubuntu was our theme, then the dream was mission. Everything that we thought about was mission. How are we called to share ourselves with each other—mission being anytime we move outside our comfort zone, and care and love and participate in God’s dream of reconciling this world.

That was the heartbeat of our convention. As a matter of fact, our presiding bishop said that the convention claimed God’s mission as the heartbeat of the Episcopal Church. And she said that every member that was at Convention was really charged to go back to their community, just as we are doing today, asking , what are we called to do? How are we called to serve our neighbor? How are we called to serve the least of these? How are we called to serve those who Jesus loves? Whether it’s within the walls of our church, our city, our nation, or our world, that is the work of this church in these next three years: to ponder the work of mission.

So, we had, I must say, some very wonderful sermons that engaged all of those topics each day. We had very lively worship that engaged the visual arts, wonderful lively music. As a matter of fact, we created what was called the “Ubuntu Choir.” So anyone who came to Convention could come on up and just join the choir. It was very easygoing; we set out a few African drums and so very quickly, everyone got the idea that they could come and bring their instruments as well, and join in. So by the end of Convention we had guitars, we had bassoons, we had guitars and all kinds of wonderful instruments. Everyone just shared their gifts with a glorious set of musicians. We had musicians from Los Angeles come each day as guests, who worked along with our Ubuntu Choir, which was ably led by two of the Church’s musicians. So, it was a grand, grand week of worship.

We also worshipped within the Houses, as well—in the House of Deputies and the House of Bishops. Each day, deliberations began for resolution, but it was always begun with a study of Scripture and some prayer and a bit of singing. The day always closed that way, as well. So some of the work that was done at Convention in each of those Houses—and how it happens is a resolution is raised in the House of Deputies and will perhaps come to the House of Bishops. Both have to agree—both have to concur before it actually is enacted as a resolution.

So some of those resolutions were that we would look at exploring a new role of ministry in our Church called the lay evangelist. There is a great desire that we should get up out of our chairs and share this good news of Jesus Christ in our world and that we ought to be training people to do that work. There were new liturgies that are being discussed and developed to deal with all kinds of pastoral issues in the Church, such as childbirth, or loss of children. There was a lot of discussion around mandatory pension for both lay and ordained employees. A health insurance plan that would be mandated globally by the Episcopal Church. We looked at issues of Creation, the reduction of greenhouse gases, and also reflected on our complicity in the economic crisis.

Another wonderful resolution that was passed was to really sort of step up our concern and care and outreach for the Latino community. Each diocese is called to empower ministers to really take on this vital ministry in our nation. Finally, a resolution was passed to speak out against domestic violence, and then to look at one of the things the Convention can do besides create new laws and new canons. The Convention is where the budget is decided for the National Church. And the National Church, like everywhere else, is facing some severe restrictions. Each diocese contributes to the work of the National Church and if the parishes are struggling, the amount given to the National Church, in turn, is limited. So, they have reduced their budget by $23 million. So, it means that the office of the National Church is going to cut many employees—beloved employees that have very vital ministries. And, we’ll just tighten our belts on a national level and know that as in all other settings, this is a time for us to call out the most creative ways we can think of for going forward and rolling up our sleeves and getting in there and doing the work.

I know we want to talk about two very important resolutions that were discussed at General Convention, and that is DO-25, which Steve Huber is going to talk about in a bit, and that is opening up ordained ministry to all people; and CO-26, which is the development of liturgies for the blessing of same-sex couples, and we’ll speak a little bit about that after Steve has talked to us about DO-25.

Steve Huber: Thanks, Carol. On a table in the back, right in front of the baptismal font, there are some handouts. There is a full copy of the two resolutions that Carol just mentioned: DO-25 and the resolution to begin work on rights of same-gender blessings, and those are the resolutions that I’m sure you’ve read the most about in the papers, as you’ve already heard from Carol. Convention does a lot of wonderful, important, good work on a whole host of issues from the environment to the economy to all kinds of justice issues around the globe. I think, sadly, that work does not get reported as it deserves to be, and it is the hot-button topics that generate the most press. But anyway, copies of those resolutions are in the back. There is a copy, also in the back, of the presiding bishop’s letter to the Church following Convention—it’s a wonderful letter. And then, a summary list of all the legislation that was passed at General Convention, back there. If, when you get back there, the copies have been taken, and they are gone, you might just write this website down; they are available on the website gc2009.org/viewlegislation. On that website, you can get a copy of not just these controversial resolutions but all the resolutions that were passed.

So, the resolution that probably generated the most press was the passage of the resolution numbered DO-25. A little history: it was six years ago—two General Conventions ago—that the Episcopal Church, at General Convention, affirmed the election of Eugene Robinson as the Bishop of New Hampshire. Some would say that was an enormously prophetic move; others would say it was an incredibly troublesome move. Wherever you are in that assessment, I think we all know that the ensuing six years have been a time of real conversation, some conflict, a lot of pain, a lot of discussion, about issues of human sexuality, not just in the Episcopal Church but in the worldwide Anglican Communion.

One of the responses to that decision, which our Church made six years ago, was the establishment of a commission that was charged by the Archbishop of Canterbury to look into issues of unity in the Anglican Communion. It was chaired by Archbishop Robin Ames, a primate of Ireland. And the result of their work was published in what is referred to as the Windsor Report—you’ve probably heard that referred to—that came out in 2004. Again, you can see a full copy of the Windsor Report just by typing in “Windsor Report” in Google and you can see a full copy of that and lots of recommendations. One of the recommendations was certainly that all of the churches in the Anglican Communion engage in some theological study around issues of human sexuality and particularly the American church—the Episcopal Church—and the Canadian church, which had already made decisions along these lines, take a lead, if you will, in creating a theological framework for how it is that we could do what we did.

The Episcopal Church’s response to that can also be found online and it’s to set our hope on Christ. I think it’s one of the best pieces of theology about this issue, so I recommend it to you, and it is our response to that recommendation from the Windsor Report.

Three years ago, at General Convention in Columbus, Ohio, we elected a new presiding bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori. Again, I think many people—most people—thought that a quite prophetic move. Katharine Jefferts Schori is a brilliant leader, a woman of deep faith, a real theologian; but, she was the first woman, not only elected as presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, but as presiding bishop or primate, or archbishop, within the worldwide Anglican Communion. So, once again, the possibility of some real accusation that the Episcopal Church is just off doing its thing with regard for unity. One action that happened—again, this is my interpretation of this, so I will own this editorial take—one interpretation of that concern, along with the ongoing concern about issues of human sexuality, was a very eleventh-hour piece of legislation. It was passed on the last day of Convention three years ago in Columbus Ohio. and there is a copy of that also on the table, and I’ve handwritten 2006 on it so you know that that piece of legislation is from three years ago and not just from a month ago.

It was a piece of legislation that essentially said, and I’ll read it because it’s just a couple sentences, “The 75th General Convention,” and that was three years ago, “receives and embraces the Windsor Report’s invitation to engage in a process of healing and reconciliation. We have further resolved that this Convention, therefore, call upon standing committees with bishops in jurisdiction, to exercise restraint by not consenting to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion.”

I guess if its purpose was to hold the Communion together, it did that. We continue to be held together, but you know, sometimes, we’re skating kind of pretty near the edge; but we are still one body—as of this morning, anyway. So, it did that. But you can imagine, for those people who felt—particularly around Gene Robinson’s consecration, and his subsequent witnesses of a very competent, good bishop—that this was really putting binders on not only what the Church could do, but how we see the Spirit moving the Church. This felt like code language to put the binders on the movement of the gay and lesbian people, being further called, particularly to the Episcopal ministry and Church.

So for the last three years, there’s been a lot of angst about DO-33, a lot of angst about that. Running up to this year’s General Convention in some quarters of the Church, a lot of organizing —we’ve got to go to Anaheim this year, we’ve got to get this thing overturned, this is terrible, we’ve got to make that move,

DO-25, I think, was a major response to this that allowed us to move forward as a Church without getting into a debate or a fight, an internal fight, overturning this. This still stands in the Church. Because of DO-25, I think now this can be judges in a broader context. I personally think we go down a slippery slope when we start talking about people’s manner of life; but nonetheless, this can be judged in a broader context. Because the DO-25 that did pass does a couple of things. First of all, it affirms the Episcopal Church’s commitment and desire to remain full partners of the worldwide Anglican Communion. It affirms our financial commitment to the support of the Anglican Communion. And then it affirms that we’ve been doing and will continue to do what the Windsor Report asked us to do, and what the conferences, that once-every-ten-year meeting of bishops, have asked us to do since 1978, and that is through listening and prayer and theological study, to discern this issue of human sexuality in our Church.

It affirms that, at least in the Episcopal Church, gay and lesbian persons are a part of our Church and they have exercised ministries in and on behalf of the Church; and they’re doing so currently. It has been our listening and our experience that God has called and will no doubt continue to call such individuals to ordained ministry in the Church.

It also acknowledges that, with all that said, both the Episcopal Church and the larger worldwide Anglican Communion are not of a mind about that and we want to be in respectful dialog about that. This is not about winners and losers, who’s right and who’s wrong; this is about trying to be open to the prodding of the Spirit and how we best discern that. Whether we’re the Episcopal Church or whether we’re the Anglican Church in Africa, we all see dimly, we all understand partially, and we have to approach these things—I think—with a spirit of humility. At the same time, we have to be open to where the Spirit might be leading us.

Also, this resolution affirmed—and this will get to, then, what I’ll ask Carol to come back up and talk about—it also affirmed that it has been our experience in the Episcopal Church—and we’re not talking about any other part of the Anglican Communion but it’s in our experience here—that same-gender couples are living in lifelong, committed relationships that are marked by fidelity and monogamy, mutual affection and respect, careful, honest communication, and a holy love which allows those couples to see the face of God in their partner. That has been our experience.

This resolution was passed both by the House of Bishops and the House of Deputies. It, no doubt, will cause further strains within the worldwide Anglican Communion as the press is already beginning to report, post-convention. I think it’s too early to say how all that will play out. I guess I would just end by saying it seems to me that the tension here in the Church, and it’s a tension that is not just related to this issue—it goes back to the history of the Church—you can have the same tension in politics, you can have the same tension when any group of people have gathered for the intention of doing good work, or in the case of the Church, discerning God’s will.

That tension between trying to respond to where we understand—and I hope we understand in humility, not in pride or arrogance—but where we understand in humility God to be calling us and the value of making movements—sometimes prophetic movements, sometimes bold and challenging movement in that direction—and the very legitimate value of unity. I’m sure no one is surprised; I think the passage of this resolution is great, I’m all in favor of it. I believe in the unity of the Anglican Communion, I don’t look at that cavalierly or just dismiss that. But those two values often come in tension, and it seems to me that’s what is at work here. And that’s been at work long before Gene Robinson was consecrated bishop but I think that consecration brought this issue, that had been simmering, to the floor. So we still continue to struggle with that.

I’m proud of our Church, and I think that one of the other things that is clearly a tone of General Convention—I was in the chamber six years ago when Gene Robinson was consecrated, and our then-presiding bishop, Frank Griswold, before the vote was consecrated. Our then-presiding bishop, Frank Griswold—before the vote was taken—reminded people that we are in Communion with one another; we are in bonds of friendship and fidelity to one another, and this is not about winners and losers, there will be no cheering, there will be no booing. We do this humbly, hoping that we are responding to the call of the Spirit. And I think every Convention has that tone. Sadly, when we get on our planes and come back home, some people dig their heels in the sand, but I guess that’s just human nature.

But at least in the context of Convention, the ones I’ve been to, there has been a spirit of respect. So, I hope that continues, and I hope that we can continue to discern God’s call and be willing to take the risks when we feel called to do that, but always with a respect for our unity.

The other resolution that relates to this is a resolution that would fall within the standing commission on liturgy, of which Carol is a member. Carol I’m going to have you come back up and talk about that.

Sam Lloyd: I just want to ask my two colleagues to be quite brief in these last parts because I do want to leave time for a couple of questions.

Carol Wade: Well, in response to what Steve said about things not being done cavalierly, I had the privilege to walk with bishops very closely for the past three years and see how they have prayerfully worked together in deep conversation with one another, growing in their mutual respect as they have had these difficult conversations together. When this was voted on in Anaheim, I must say I was surprised at the outcome, as were many in the House, and it just seemed to gently happen. The Spirit simply moved.

Steve alluded to—these conversations began officially at General Convention in 1976. 33 years ago, we began this discussion of human sexuality. And a lot of prayer, a lot of theology, a lot of pastoral care has been done around this issue. So when this vote happened, it simply, simply happened. It was a quiet moment and a prayerful moment. And I must say, the next day, the bishops were—two-thirds voted for it, and a third did not. And to realize, essentially, that the center of the House of Bishops had shifted a bit. One of the bishops got up—and these are in public records so I’m not conveying something that was done behind closed doors—and talked about the need to be very careful now that the theology had shifted a bit, to really care for our brothers and sisters who may not agree with this decision, and say that we belong together still. That we need to be very careful about every decision we make together and certainly, this resolution on creating same-gender blessings. So, I was really struck by the great deal of care that the bishops were taking for each other as we were moving forward on this issue.

So with CO-56, this idea of gathering and developing new liturgies, the resolution—and this was part of the discussion about being tender, a little more tender toward each other—the resolution originally read “to gather and to create these liturgies” but they said, no, why don’t we just think about gathering and developing them? So it’s just slowing down the process just ever so much, perhaps a bit by language, but I think it matters. So we’ll gather these resources for blessings, for the next three years until the next General Convention, and the House of Bishops will do this work along with members from the Standing Committee on Liturgy and Music. And the whole of the Church is invited to offer any resources that they might have, for these two bodies to ponder what it means to have liturgies of blessing , and then they will present those at the next General Convention.

Sam Lloyd: I think I’ll go ahead. John Peterson was going to say something about the impact on the larger Anglican Communion, but I think this is enough reporting. So, let me open the floor for about five minutes of questions. We’ll use the mic if we need to. I ask you to please ask questions and not make statements. We’ve just got a very brief amount of time to get across information to you. Yes; could you stand up, please?

[unintelligible]

The question has to do with the fact that, as she understands it, two of the candidates for bishop in Los Angeles are gay; can I update you all on that? I think that’s true, something like that. Carol, did you...

Carol Wade: There are two. And the election will take place in December.

Sam Lloyd: In December; two out of the six, that’s right. And we’ll take this moment to—we don’t know, obviously the convention passed some things that are holding a pass and not saying what’s going to happen and how; and so it’s going to be quite surprising, I think, as we see how people choose to respond to this. We don’t know. Question over here.

[unintelligible]

I could say something about that. Archbishop Rowan Williams wrote his own response to our General Convention about ten days ago; I recommend it to you, it’s very carefully, thoughtfully done. I think the best place to get it is probably archbishopofcanterbury.co.uk. I think that would be it, or just Google “Archbishop of Canterbury.” There’s a July 27, very careful document where he disagrees with what the Episcopal Church has done at General Convention. He asked us not to go where we went. But, as Steve had said, deliberations had been going on since 1976, and our church decided two-to-one in both houses that it was time to do that. We should say that the significance of the two-thirds to one-third probably reflects something of the fact that a fair number of the conservatives in the Episcopal Church have left and weren’t at the Convention. So that affected the shape of the conversation.

I do recommend Williams’ statement as a thoughtful response from someone who’s trying to hold the Communion together. It’s the other piece of this, as Steve described this, prophetic decision to move over against the call for us to be body of Christ with each other. That will be a longer conversation at another time. Any other questions?

[unintelligible]

Well, yes. The question is, is there any emphasis on youth and the building up of our youth in the Episcopal Church? Carol, would you say something about that?

Carol Wade: Indeed. Yes, there was a very strong youth delegation at Convention, and they also had a day where their work was raised up, so there is a strong emphasis on the work of our youth, indeed.

Sam Lloyd: As we close, just a final thought or two. General Convention has been working at this for a long time—the whole Episcopal Church has. All the other denominations that have been watching us wrestle with it—every denomination, certainly what we call the mainline denominations: Methodist, Presbyterian—are in the thick of this as well. This is part of what discerning what the Gospel means in our culture, and what it calls for here. One of the realities of being in Anglican Communion is the Church is living in strikingly different cultures from ours, where something like homosexuality is viewed in very, very different ways, for example, in Africa, and often in the context of Muslim cultures as well. The tension is for us to be faithful to God’s call, and in this country, in this culture, in this time, while trying to maintain a dynamic relationship with the larger Anglican Communion.

You’ve heard a description of what our Convention has done, a decision to move forward. It was not done lightly; people had struggled deeply with this thing. You’ll read, when you read the statement, a description of the yearning of the Communion to stay together. We had decided to take a risky path forward in helping gay and lesbian people be fully part of our Church, fully part of what it means to be baptized Christian, living the baptismal covenant with each other.

We don’t know what those steps are going to look like yet; we have not had a chance to talk to Bishop Chane about this; there will be a diocesan service about it, and we will have our own Cathedral sermon about it. What we do know is that we are in new terrain now, and we will be praying and thinking and talking, and also talking amongst our various communities at this Cathedral as we make our way forward. So it’s new territory, it’s risky territory; that seems to be what the Spirit likes to do: —put us in strange new places and ask us to learn to love and be faithful in very complex, new terrain. That, by the grace of God, is where we are.

I’ll conclude for now. Thank you for being here, and I’m sure this is a conversation that will continue. Thank you.