I always explain that the Diocesan Convention is analogous to the state legislature --- except we only can meet for two days a year!
Our convention met on January 18 and 19th. Several interesting discussions were held.
As always, Bishop Curry's address to the convention was a major highlight! He spoke about how the church did not need a revival, which suggests doing what we have always done, but needs to be a new church. He did not mean that in a demeaning or insulting way but rather to suggest that our church (the people) should look like North Carolina. He quoted from the 3rd Bishop of NC who wrote in 1855 that our church had many of the wealthy people but where were the shop keepers, and where were the slaves? A courageous comment to make in
1855! This link is to the bull
Pastoral Address by Bishop Curry but I also have some printed copies at the church.
We adopted a resolution formalizing a campaign diocese arrangement with the Diocese of Botswana (near South Africa - I had to look it up!) Bishop Mwamba was our keynote speaker. I wish his address was available! I will link you to the Greensboro News-Record article as soon as possible so look back here in a couple days. One of his points was to stress how, unlike what the international media may say, not everyone in Africa hates the US church! He stressed how most people were too focused on food and shelter to worry about another countries discussions over sexuality! Plus many people felt maintaining the Anglican Communion was more important than any single issue.
We adopted several other
resolutions. Most of them, I am convinced, God has
no interest in!! Sure it is important that we agree on how to count votes, etc. but I am sure God would drift out for a cup of coffee and conversation during those discussions. Still, I have included those for anyone interested. For some reason the set we were sent left out the one on the environment and energy conservation. Again, look back and I will link to that as soon as possible.
As has become the norm, the controversial one concerned sexuality and specifically the blessing of same sex unions. The final resolution had three resolves. The first one urges the Archbishop of Canterbury to invite the Bishop of New Hampshire, an openly gay man, to the worldwide Lambeth Conference. (Interesting -- extending such invitations is effectively the ONLY power the Archbishop of Canterbury has!) The argument is essentially, like him or not, Bishop Robinson is a duly elected Bishop and should be invited.
The second resolved asks that our deputies to the next General Convention (i.e. those from our Diocese) support "
the full and equal participation of all persons regardless of sexual orientation in all aspects of the Church's ministries, lay or ordained." Although it does not say so quite that directly, the focus of this resolved seems to be on ordination. Effectively that is the only "aspect of the Church's life" currently in question. (see comments on marriage below)
The third resolve was the most controversial. It encourages the General Convention (which is analogous to the US Congress) to
"call for the development of public liturgies for the blessing of same sex unions."To fully understand this issue we must clarify some language issues. The church has
NO POWER over who gets married and who does not. That power is entirely and completely a government issue. I can decide NOT to do a wedding, but if the state says a couple should not be married, I cannot do the marriage. For example, it was not so many years ago that a Black and a White could not be married. A priest could not decide to marry them no matter what the priest's opinion.
The church's power is over whose wedding is
blessed. Even though I sign the marriage license, I do so as an unpaid employee of the State of NC -- not specifically as a priest. The blessing however is my choice.
Unfortunately the word "marriage" has been linked to religion, when there really is no such link. I wish I had good statistics but a very large percentages of "marriages" in NC have nothing to do with God. They are strictly civil unions with no mention of God at all. They are done in the courthouse or other venue by a civil employee such as a judge. In fact, our Prayer Book has a special service for such circumstances: "The blessing of a civil union." Many people have argued that churches should refuse to do the "marriage", let civil employees do that, and stick to the religious "blessing'. That is what Prince Charles did this last time for example. They went to the courthouse, were married, and then went to the church and asked God's blessing on the marriage. (Although the rule is unlikely to change and I am unlikely to become a stickler on this point -- I have come around to that opinion.)
So what this resolution requests is that the church develop services (liturgies) to allow the blessing of committed, monogamous couples of the same gender. As you probably know some states have approved doing this on a civil level to simplify things like health care decisions, inheritances, ownership, etc. However, this would again be separate from the civil legal decision but be "simply" asking God's blessing.
Opposition to this action seemed to fall into two camps. First there were people who were opposed entirely to the blessing of same sex unions. They (I am assuming here but it is a reasonable assumption) believe the Bible forbids such unions. People who disagree with that statement argue (again greatly simplifying a complex issue) that either those prohibitions were aimed at another society (similar to the prohibitions against certain foods) or second, that the Bible was prohibiting abusive sexual relations of any kind. (That is the stronger argument of the two I believe.)
(semi-aside. I think it is important to note that the discussion is seldom "throw out the Bible" but instead is: "are we understanding the Bible correctly? How did God intend us to understand this passage?)The second reason for opposition was an issue of timing. (Again, I am assuming - ) That the blessing of same sex unions
may be a good thing - later. But for right now we need to take a little more time for discussion, prayer and thought. (not necessarily in that order!) I heard a couple people say that we needed to give moderates around the world a little more time before jumping this far.
Bishop Curry commented toward the end of Convention that the most important point was our ability to discuss controversial issues in a respectful manner. You can read his comments by clicking
Bishop's comments.As always feel free to email me at:
ken@st-christopher.org (I hope - eventually - to clear up the spam problem so we can allow a group discussion through this blog.)
Labels: Convention resolutions
