Further reflections on rethinking General Convention

Responses to my three part August series at the Episcopal Café on rethinking General Convention generally disappointed but did not surprise me (I, II, and III). I anticipated the lack of energy for discussing possible revisions to the Episcopal Church’s governance processes and structures. I must confess that I too lack energy for that project.

However, the comments posted at the Café largely ignored that the problems I identified. Of course, much of the disappointing response may stem from a lack of clarity on my part. Notable exceptions to the disappointing response included Marshall Scott’s extended comment and subsequent column. Meaningful lay participation in the Episcopal Church’s governance demands processes and structures that afford all communicants fair and reasonable opportunity for meaningful participation. Nobody challenged my analysis that the status quo unintentionally excludes many communicants from serving as deputies and dis-empowers many inexperienced deputies.

Similarly, the Episcopal Church has long valued having an educated clergy. If the clergy, and bishops in particular, lack the theological wisdom to teach in an inspiring rather than non-authoritative manner, then we desperately need to rethink how to educate our clergy and who we elect as bishops. Suggesting that bishops’ teaching role is superfluous because of an exceptional lay theologian like William Stringfellow (or any of the relative handful of other influential lay theologians) relies on a syllogistic error, i.e., since not all theologians are bishops, bishops should surrender their biblical and traditional role as teachers.

Indeed, the responses to my proposal that the House of Bishops (HOB) Theology Committee adopt a broader, more active role prompted me to wonder if some dissatisfied Episcopalians are correct: the Church has begun to follow secular culture rather than work to transform that culture in Christ's image. They allege, for example, that the Church has moved to include GLBT people because secular society has. From a Christian perspective, GBLT inclusion is not a matter of human rights (an ethical concept foreign to biblical thought), but a consequence of believing that God created all people, regardless of gender orientation or sexuality, in God's image.

Whether the HOB tends to be more liberal or conservative than the rest of the Church is irrelevant. Our goal must be to discern the mind of Christ. Theology – thinking about God – is what seminary should prepare the clergy to do and what parish education/formation programs should aim to help the laity achieve. Other skills are important for ordained and lay ministry. Nothing, however, is more important than thinking about God, especially for people who reject both a naïve prima facie reading of Scripture and rigid adherence to tradition. If our bishops are not up to the challenges of substantive, faithful thinking about God in light of Scripture and tradition, then the Episcopal Church desperately needs to act. If seminary is more about academic preparation than forming and educating (both are necessary) seminarians to think theologically, then our seminaries require significant change. Theological discourse invites disagreement; we are, after all, a people who pray together, not a people who pretend to hold common beliefs.

The intent of my proposal to expand the function and prominence of the HOB Theology Committee was to enlarge the scope and volume of theological discourse within the Episcopal Church. How that enlarging happens is unimportant – at least to me. That it happens is essential. The Church does many good things: we feed the hungry, we love the unloved, we administer buildings and programs, etc. Other people and groups do all those things, sometimes better than the Church does. The Church’s unique focus on God in worship, the interior life, and the formation of people makes it unique. Theology, explicitly or implicitly, shapes and informs how we perform all of those tasks. The Episcopal Church, like our larger society, needs more, not less theology. In fact, the underlying motive for my proposals to restructure the House of Deputies was to facilitate more substantive, theological discourse within that House by limiting the agenda and by involving more people, more organizational elements in the governance process.