A Sound of Sheer Silence

The General Convention of the Episcopal Church--where have you been all my life?  For someone who is into both politics and religion, it was squarely in my wheelhouse, and I found it fascinating and compelling on basically every level.  I was able to follow the progress of things primarily on Twitter, but also via periodically checking into the livestreams and following along with the materials from the Convention that were available to the public online (which were excellent, by the way). Having watched from afar, I have some observations on the event that is (as of this writing) wrapping up. 1.  Democracy.   Throughout the course of the Convention, you would from time to time see people complaining on Twitter about a lack of access, or marginalization of this or that group, or how pervasive clericalism was in the Episcopal Church.  I want to avoid as much as possible discounting people's experiences along those lines, but as someone who recently came over ...

In a previous post, I mentioned that inclusive (or rather, in what is apparently the preferred form, "expansive") language was in the hopper at the Episcopal Church's General Convention, as part of the proposal for beginning the process of revising the Book of Common Prayer.  The proposal to revise the BCP, with explicit instructions to include expansive language, passed the House of Delegates, and was awaiting consideration by the House of Bishops.  This has provoked great discussion online, much of it good and some of it less so. To that end, a memorial was offered , with an impressive number of signatories.  I agree with most of what is stated in the memorial.  But I stop short at this paragraph, which is likely seen by the authors as the lynchpin of the whole project: We affirm that the Trinitarian language of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is not simply metaphorical but is an important part of the inheritance of the catholic faith grounded in the revelation o...

A quick sort-of digression, and then to my main point.  I am part of the formation of a new religious community within the Episcopal Church, known as the Community of Mary, Mother of the Redeemer (CMMR).  It will be officially founded in September, and I will be saying much more about it in these electronic pages in the coming months.  There are numerous reasons why I am excited about this project, but one of them is how clear the theological vision behind the community is.  If you could summarize the charism for this community down to one sentence, it would be that "a fundamental component of the Christian message is opposition to Empire in all of its forms, and our mission is to equip and form disciples in resistance to Empire." Which of course raises the question--"what do you mean by 'Empire'?"  At the risk of defining something in relation to some other complex concept, I would say that "Empire" is a synonym for Rene Girard's concept of ...

Three summers ago, all of the news reports out of the General Convention of the Episcopal Church was "the Episcopal Church approves same sex marriage."  One might have thought that this would be the end of the matter, but, indeed, it is back on the agenda for the 2018 General Convention kicking off in Austin, Texas in a couple of weeks.  For those not following this matter closely, here is the primer.  The vehicle by which same sex marriage approval was accomplished was two-fold.  First, GC15 approved a change to the canons of the church that explicitly authorizes clergy to marry same sex couples.  This change retained the provision that a clergyperson has an essentially unconstrained right to refuse to marry any couple.  Thus, an Episcopal priest or bishop who does not support same-sex marriage can never be forced to marry a same sex couple, as they could always use the general opt-out provided for in the canons. Second, GC15 approved a group of liturg...