Answers to Experience Questions posed by the Nominating Committee (PDF)
The Rev. Thomas Edward Breidenthal, D. Phil.
Dean of Religious Life and of the Chapel, Princeton University
1. Participation in the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) These goals deserve full support: eradicating world poverty, fully respecting developing nations, achieving gender equality and protecting
children from disease and exploitation – all these match Christian imperatives grounded in Biblical teaching. Moreover, in a time of deep disagreement in our church, MDG is something most of us can agree on. We should take advantage of this agreement as we all struggle to find a way forward together. But this opportunity will be squandered if both sides in the debate over partnered gay bishops and same-sex unions do not acknowledge the moral vision they share when it comes to social and economic justice. It is all too easy for traditionalists to label their opponents’ passion for the poor as a sell-out to secular liberalism rather than a faithful response to God’s word revealed in Scripture. It’s easy because traditionalists have misunderstood support for the blessing of samesex unions as willfully unbiblical. Likewise, the other side may be tempted to misrepresent the traditionalists as irrational proponents of a narrow view of sexual morality that is at odds with its own endorsement of MDG. Such a view misses the traditionalists’ main point, namely, that all our moral stances must fall under the banner of submission to God’s word. Both sides are trying to be obedient, and both sides are clinging to the cross. Our common endorsement of the MDG demonstrates this, and should encourage us to honor the Christian integrity of our opponents and to imagine what is genuinely at stake for them as committed disciples of Jesus Christ. Close collaboration on MDG can further this work of mutual honoring and sympathetic imagination. If we co-inhabit this holy ground, refusing to relinquish it to the purveyors of schism, we may well find a degree of unity we cannot now foresee.
2. Participation in the Anglican Communion
As I write this, eight days after the conclusion of General Convention, it remains unclear whether there will be deeper engagement across the fault lines that divide us or increased disengagement. I cannot easily envision an Episcopal Church that is not part of a larger communion, since I grew up being taught that our fellowship with Anglicans around the world was a sign of our catholicity. When I made an adult decision to embrace my identity as an Episcopalian, I was chiefly drawn by this ecumenism at the heart of our tradition. Then, as now, I saw the discipline of communion across Anglican party lines as providing the basis and impetus for ecumenical initiatives with other church bodies. Our ordination rites make scarcely any mention of the Episcopal Church, referring instead to Christ’s one, holy, catholic and apostolic church. For me, there is no question that we must do everything we reasonably can to preserve the Anglican Communion and to participate in it. This does not mean that we should betray our conscience, but it does mean that we should be willing to suffer within the communion for conscience’s sake. For instance, if we refuse to repudiate the election of Bishop Robinson, our bishops may well lose their place at the Lambeth Conference. If that happens, we should continue to claim Canterbury as our spiritual home and avoid the temptation to seek easy acceptance elsewhere. Loyal but stubborn opposition has always been part of the Anglican mix, and we would be within our rights and within the tradition to camp on Canterbury’s doorstep and refuse to go away. On the other hand, we need to be clear what we mean by communion if we are going to suffer to preserve it. The Windsor Report assumes that communion implies agreement. But this
is only true to a point. Faith and history bring us together, but after that, communion is a function of our commitment to stay at the table no matter what. Communion is the Christian discipline of continuing fellowship in the face of disagreement and pain. If Anglicanism has a particular charism to offer to the universal church, it is communion-as-disagreement in the name of Christ.
3. Another topic chosen by the nominee: Evangelism
We often talk of inclusion. I do not like the term “inclusion,” because it suggests we are an essentially closed community that allows others to come in. Even if we intend to let the whole world in, this is a bad model. The church is not an inside, into which outsiders are admitted. We are located where the cross was located: outside the city gates (Hebrews 13:12-13), where there are no walls to separate stranger from stranger. The Gospel promises the recovery of our full humanity if we stick it out with Jesus in this situation of exposure. So Christian initiation is not admission into an enclosure, but expulsion into the open place where Jesus is always to be found. This means that evangelism, too, is about exposure: once we have followed Jesus out into the world, we must make our witness there, sometimes at great cost. This does not mean that we abandon our parishes and take to the streets. But it does mean that our parishes need constantly to resist the natural impulse to circle their wagons or to pursue growth by offering a refuge from complex questions. The church should indeed provide a refuge at every level from the politics of privilege. But we do this best when we allow ourselves to become a public crossroads. We do this by keeping our leadership widely distributed and continually refreshed by new voices, by being a place where issues affecting the common good are openly aired and theologically debated, and by maintaining and deepening diocesan, national, ecumenical and interfaith ties. This is no less true for rural congregations than for big city churches or for dioceses as a whole. Wherever we find ourselves, evangelism means partnership and leadership in the local community, intentionally permeable boundaries, a strong emphasis on theological education for the laity, sound preaching, and willingness to cast our bread upon the waters.
The Rev. Robert Glenn Certain, D.Min.
Rector, St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church, Palm Desert, California
1. Participation in the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) When Jesus asked Peter if he loved him, Peter responded, “Yes, Lord.” Jesus then said, “Feed my sheep,” not once, but three times. That command echoes and underscores the Great Commandments and gives direction to every generation of disciples to care for the sick and infirm, the widow and orphan, the uneducated, the poor and the powerless. In spite of the Biblical admonitions, cries for mercy are frequently unheard. While this deafness may be a result
of greed and callousness, it is also a result of the human inability to even see a problem unless the solution is near at hand. The concerns of the MDGs are found as far from us as eastern Africa and southern Asia, and as close as Appalachian villages and inner city barrios. The solutions to those concerns may seem daunting, but the response called for is within reach of us all.
In the play, Man of La Mancha, Don Quixote makes the comment, “The greatest madness of all is to accept things as they are, and not as they ought to be.” Poverty, ignorance, disease, early death, gender and racial prejudice, and division do not constitute “things as they ought to be” and should not be accepted either locally or globally. Despair and inaction in the face of these challenges is truly madness. God has given us enormous resources to enable us to respond to his admonition to Peter, and if we pool our resources (individuals, congregations, governments and NGOs) we will discover that our “little boy’s lunch” (John 6:1-14) can be multiplied to fill the need and more.
The MDGs are simple, reasonable and for the most part attainable … if we focus on the solutions rather than the problems, if we take seriously the admonitions of Our Lord, and if we trust him to be what he has always been – the God of abundance and love.
2. Participation in the Anglican Communion
Since colonial times, the churches in what is now the United States have been a bit of a pain in the side of Anglicanism. We rejected the idea of bishops in the colonies, provided a seedbed for the Wesleyan and Methodist revival and broke our ordination vows when we rebelled against the Crown. In 1784, when “loyalist” Samuel Seabury convinced the non-juring bishops of the Scottish Church to ordain him a bishop for the United States, we effectively began the Anglican Communion, although it would be another three years before the English bishops would agree to consecrate bishops for the former colonies and an additional five years before the two lines of succession would be united even in the U.S.
From that difficult beginning, the daughter churches of the Church of England have been committed to each other in prayer and worship, polity and Episcopal succession. Our national autonomy has been both a blessing and a curse, as we have explored the meaning of discipleship to Christ in our sometimes very different cultural settings.
Whether in congregation, diocese, national church, or Anglican Communion, God has revealed himself as a God of variety, and it is in the midst of that variety that he speaks most clearly. Together we act as teacher and student, stabilizer and change-agent, conscience and innovator. Since our ancient theology holds that the Holy Spirit guides most clearly in ecumenical council, it is in the deliberations of the Communion that we can find our greatest hope. Any insistence to agree on everything sounds like a call to build a new “Tower of Babel.” In the Bible story, unity of language and purpose led to pride, with the people patting themselves on the back for being so smart. In turn, God decided to destroy the tower and to confuse our language in order to keep us mindful that only God creates anything of lasting significance. Differences remind us that God alone is sovereign – not you, me, theologians or doctrines. Divergent ideas and actions, even heretical ones, will not destroy us, our faith, or Our Lord. But they will lead us to ask morequestions, find new answers, correct old errors, and rediscover the depths of the love of God in
Christ Jesus.
3. Another topic chosen by the nominee: Evangelism
Our response to the Great Commission to make disciples is the reference point for all other issues facing the Church in this or any age. In the recently completed 75th General Convention, evangelism was quietly central. In order to prepare for the mission ahead, we established a development office to prepare for a capital campaign to support new church plants, we encouraged the opening of councils to teens and young adults, we provided guidance for children and their care, we established a special missionary initiative for the building of the church anew in the devastated regions of Louisiana, and we called on our bishops to “cast a vision of mission for the church, and to lead us there.”
We are compelled to ask “what is God calling us to do and to be, and how are we both listening and responding to that call?” When someone approaches the Church, we are to seek first what we have to offer them, and secondly what they have to offer us. In that relationship we find Christ at work to change all our lives. As we look out from our communities of faith, we ask who in our community has not truly heard the word of God and found a saving relationship with Jesus Christ?” If our Lord points us in the direction of people who differ from us, he is pointing us toward a wider and deeper grace, and our joy will be found in exploring the richness of that grace.
The vision is not so much to see a future without stress or strain, but to be able to see the world as Christ does – as his own beloved creation for which he died and rose again. The greatest vision for our future is to claim our name and heritage as God's beloved and to share the name of the Beloved with the whole world.
The Rev. Susan E. Goff
Rector, St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church, Springfield, Virginia
1. Participation in the Millennium Development Goals (MDG)
In the midst of the significant differences that separate people in The Episcopal Church and wider Anglican Communion, commitment to the Millennium Development Goals unites us in common mission and
ministry. It also gives us a powerful means to share the reconciling love of Christ with a world so in need of reconciliation. When Jesus went to Nazareth, he read from the prophet Isaiah, “The Spirit of the Lord . . .
has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:18-19) The
MDGs give us such measurable and attainable ways to participate in this healing ministry of Christ that 2015, the target date for reaching the goals, could truly be a year of God’s favor.
By focusing on basic human needs, the MDGs promote justice, and doing justice in the world is a faithful and effective road to peace and security. All too often, actions we think will lead to security have just the opposite effect. George, a Palestinian Christian friend from Bethlehem, shared with me how the wall that is being built across his land is not promoting peace but increasing injustice and insecurity. The MDGs, on the other hand, by addressing education, empowerment, partnership, environmental sustainability and alleviation of hunger and disease offer tools for breaking down walls of many kinds and building bridges of hope and security the world over.
This is not to say that the goals are a panacea. Progress toward the goals has been made but is uneven. Skeptics claim that this effort will yield no measurable results. After all, imperfect and broken human beings are doing this work. But with a large and growing international consensus, this global program can vastly improve the lives of millions. By participating in these goals, we work toward fulfilling the promises we made at our baptism and we witness to the world the reconciling love of Christ.
2. Participation in the Anglican Communion
As I write this a week after General Convention, reactions to the work of Convention are coming at a fast and furious pace. This flurry of activity points out what has always been true – that the Anglican Communion is still a work in progress, still in the making. Anglicanism was forged in the crucible of conflict between Catholicism and Protestantism and emerged as the “via media,” the middle way. The Anglican Communion continues to be shaped in our generation in the tension between autonomy and interdependence.
Both autonomy and interdependence are valued in the biblical story. Jesus honored the cultural distinctiveness of human beings like the Canaanite woman who engaged him in a battle of wits, the Samaritan woman to whom he spoke the truth, and the Roman centurion whose faith he commended. Jesus reached across the cultural, gender and religious divides of his time and treated people as valued individuals. At the same time, Jesus upheld the importance of interdependence and unity among his followers as he prayed “that they may be one.” In respect for this model of our Lord, I believe our task in the long years of tension and debate that lie ahead is to find ways to honor and maintain both the distinctiveness and the interdependence of provinces in the Anglican Communion. Our task is to seek a new middle way between the competing forces that pull at us, a new middle ground from which we can reach outin welcome to all sides. If we fail to do this and are forced to choose between autonomy and
interdependence, the brilliant comprehensiveness of Anglicanism will be lost. As we in The Episcopal Church continue in dialogue and prayer with other provinces in the Anglican Communion, I believe we need to remain unapologetic in explaining and defending our distinctive democratic polity. And as we listen to others explain their distinctiveness, I believe we should always take care to balance the demands of autonomy and interdependence with the cry of justice for all of God’s beloved children.
3. Another topic chosen by the nominee: Church growth and demographics
The Church is called to be a reflection of God’s heavenly banquet right here on earth. Jesus’ parables and experiences of banquets, taken together, convey an image of people from all ages and races, occupations and socio-economic conditions, genders and lifestyles, gathered together at one table. The majority of congregations are not yet reflections of the rich diversity of this heavenly realm. Statistics show that, on any given Sunday, only 5% of Americans go to church. Among adults who go to churches with predominantly white membership, 40% are men and the percentage of men is even lower in churches with predominantly African American members. The average age of churchgoers, not including children under 15, is 45. Many congregations have no youth or children at all among their active participants.
These realities present The Episcopal Church with great opportunities. We have the opportunity to involve young children in our worship in such creative and joy-filled ways that they come eagerly to church, bringing their families with them. We have the opportunity to share with young generations the treasures of the Christian heritage while learning from them how to convey the faith in language and images they find compelling. We have the opportunity to minister faithfully to the elderly “greatest generation” who have given so much to the church and now are passing on the torch of leadership. We have the opportunity to proclaim the faith in ways that capture the hearts of men and bring them into the church in the same numbers as women. And we have the opportunity to bring to the banquet tables in our own churches the poor, the homeless, the outcast and all who are overlooked by society. I believe that addressing these opportunities is vital not only for the future of the church, but for our mission and ministry
right here and right now as we strive to live into the fullness of God’s realm.
...more (if you can take it) here(PDF).
8 Comments •
Comments:
Zero conservatives. Conservatives, your diocesean leadership is against your faith…even though it be “little by little.”
God’s peace!