Of “Revision” of Marriage Rites

The debate over whether the proposed marriage rites authorized under Resolution B012 of the 2018 General Convention constitute “a revision of the BCP” or “trial use in accordance with Article X” is moot. Article X provides for the authorization of trial rites "throughout this church" as part of the revision process of the BCP. 

So when someone says these rites were "not proposed as a revision" that only means they were not proposed under the first part of Article X as a “first reading” to be approved finally at the next session of General Convention. That is a procedure only undertaken when rites have been tested and are ready for their final form

It is not at all unusual for a rite to be authorized in the manner of B012. Since the early 60s, in the leadup to the wholesale revision of the BCP in 1976/79, the various revisions of individual liturgies were published, promulgated, and authorized “for trial use” until, in 1976, the “first reading” of the whole new BCP was approved, and the same (with only a couple of minor emendations to take account of the approval of the ordination of women) ratified in 1979. The marriage rites are now in the exactly the same situation as the numerous revisions of other rites, including matrimony, that were published from 1964 on; that is, as Article X says, they are authorized “for trial use throughout this  Church, as an alternative at any time or times to the established Book of Common Prayer or to any section or Office thereof,” as “a proposed revision of the whole Book or of any portion thereof...” (emphasis mine.)

Meanwhile, part of the reason Bishop Love of Albany has been found wanting is due to the marriage canon (I.18.1), which states that all clergy may solemnize marriages using “any of the liturgical forms authorized by this Church.” The rites are unquestionably authorized, and Bishop Love interfered with that clerical right, though he had absolutely no need to do so. 

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Of the Paradox of Anglican Tradition

It is a paradox of the Anglican Way that one of its traditional tenets is that tradition is unreliable as an independent source of authority. This paradox is evident in the works of the judicious Hooker (who never mentioned a three-legged stool) and the more authoritative Articles of Religion. Anecdotally, I have seen this paradox play out a number of times in religious community and the ecclesiastical life of the church. Time and again, people who come to religious life, or to positions of leadership in the church, expressing a desire to be under authority come to reject that authority when it proves either less than authoritative or authoritatively asserts something contrary to what they independently want to believe. It is as if they are saying, “I want to be told what to think,” but when they are told to think for themselves, or are told something they do not find congenial, dig in their heels or shake the dust from them. It has been my experience that the most schismatic and disobedient are the ones who profess to hate schism and claim obedience “to a higher authority” — code for “one that agrees with me.” They head off to seek a church or community which either tells them what to do, or places them at the apex of leadership.

Anglicanism, as it is expressed in The Episcopal Church, lives in this tension, and seeks to help people to find a mature faith growing from within rather than impressed from without. Instead of formation — molding the person to fit a necessary pattern — it is education — the drawing forth of insight, relying (it is true) on a framework, but trusting to the power of the indwelling Spirit to guide and nurture.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Denature of Communion

My chum from New Zealand, Bosco Peters, has posted a very helpful essay on the nature of the Anglican Communion, focusing on the extent to which communion is an applicable term, given what it usually means — mutual recognition of ministers, and their ability to function within each other’s churches (mutatis mutandis).

The problem did not begin with the recent collapses and severances of recognition (and function) at primatial gatherings; nor in the disagreements in the wake of Gene Robinson’s election and consecration. Nor did the breaches start with the “impaired communion” (a term which has always reminded me of “partial virginity”) declared (or described) by Archbishop Runcie after Barbara Harris’ consecration (and concerning every woman bishop since, given the fact that a woman bishop can still not function as even a presbyter in some parts of the “communion.”)

For one could go back all the way to the 26th year of George III (1786), and the Act of Parliament that first permitted the ABC and ABYork (with others) to ordain and consecrate the Americans White and Provoost without the royal warrant, and absent the oaths normally required. Among other things, the Act stated:

...be it hereby declared, that no person or persons consecrated to the office of a bishop in the manner aforesaid, nor any person or persons deriving their consecration from or under any bishop so consecrated, nor any person or persons admitted to the order of deacon or priest by any bishop or bishops so consecrated, or by the successor or successors of any bishop or bishops so consecrated, shall be thereby enabled to exercise his or their respective office or offices within his Majesty's dominions.

So from the outset the Anglican “Communion” has been one in a (partially) shared spirit, a variable historical deposit, but lacking the uniform application of the standard mark of “communion” as it is used in ordinary ecumenical relations.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Thought on Today's Gospel (Luke 4:21-30)

With regard to The Episcopal Church, the Primates of the Anglican Communion appear to have taken as their text, "...shut up for three years."

I would rather focus on the truth that the power of the Holy Spirit often lights on those who minister among the outcasts, poor and untouchable, of Sidon and Damascus. Prophetic words — which simply means “true words” — are not always welcome among the family, and those who utter them are sometimes dismissed from the table (or threatened with being thrown from a cliff) by those who do not wish to hear that God’s mysterious work takes place even where, perhaps especially where, it is unexpected and unlooked for.

So it has been, so it is now, so it will be: the water flows in the desert, and those who thirst find relief, while the proud will not stoop to the spring.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

The Nature of the Feast

In the old legend, the Grail provided its knight-guardians a eucharistic feast that all of them found to be the food that each liked best, according to his taste. With the growing number of eucharistic prayers and lectionaries now on offer, with more to come, I think we Episcopalians are in danger of reversing this process. We seem to be hasting to replace the simple serving of 'common prayer' with a groaning board of options with little stability from parish to parish or week to week.

I am by no means arguing for a return to the 1928 standard (one eucharistic prayer and one lectionary), but would urge that we not go too far in the other direction. A small set of liturgies and lectionaries, spiced with variety in hymnody, music, ceremonial, and preaching, which we have long enjoyed, seems a more wholesome diet, conducive to nourish faith and community, across time and space.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Something could be finer

I suppose it should not come as a surprise that a court in South Carolina should find that The Episcopal Church is a loose confederation of independent dioceses that are free to associate or disassociate at will. This finding is, I hope most Episcopalians recognize, in error. The case for diocesan autonomy is based largely on stray quotations taken out of context, both documentary and historical. For instance, much is made of William White's early reflections in The Case of the Episcopal Churches, written in a time before the church came to be as such, and standing in stark contrast to what actually happened once things came to a head and proceeded, as amply documented in White's later Memoirs.

Assertions of "sovereignty" or "independence" are revealed to be specious in the face of the fact that -- apart from that very early period in which bishops were obtained more or less on suffrance -- from the time of the first actual Constitution a "state" or a diocese could not obtain a bishop without the approval of the rest of the church's episcopal and clerical and lay leadership (originally by the General Convention itself, later by other processes). Can one imagine a circumstance in which a "sovereign" State of the the US would have to gain the approval of Congress, or of the governors in office and the legislatures of a majority of the states in order to place their own elected governor into office?

No, The Episcopal Church is more hierarchical than the Federal Government, to which it bears only a passing resemblance. It is not a confederation, but unitary -- ultimately the General Convention is the final authority, and the Oath of Conformity "binds" all clergy to the doctrine, discipline and worship of the Church as determined by the General Convention; and diocesan conventions are not permitted to alter the General Constitution on their own, nor are they given a direct voice in its composition or amendment, save through their deputies to the General Convention -- as the Constitution states at present, and as was proposed in 1785, ratified in 1789. Amendments are sent to the dioceses and their conventions for information, not approval, and ratified (or not) at the next session of the General Convention, by that General Convention. There is no higher court of appeal.

Some make much of the fact that the Constitution of TEC does not expressly forbid a diocese becoming independent. Actually, it does provide for this for foreign dioceses -- several of which, such as those in Mexico and Brazil, have become independent as churches in their own right. The absence of a "supremacy clause" from the Constitution of the Episcopal Church was not an oversight, but a decision that such a clause was not necessary in a church whose members were bound in a "union" (the nuptial imagery is relevant!) and that had a "General" Convention. The word "General," in common use at the time, indicated control over the whole, as opposed to "local" or "sectional." The OED helpfully notes its use for deliberative bodies, and provides an apposite citation from George Washington: "The States individually are omitting no occasion to intermeddle in matters which belong to the general government." There are also cites from Jay and Jefferson that indicate their understanding of "general" in this way as concerning the whole. So the clause, "There shall be a General Convention of this Church..." is sufficient in and of itself to establish the supremacy of that body in all matters affecting the whole church. Finally, it should be noted that the US Constitution also lacks an express clause denying the right of states to secede. South Carolina disagreed on that, too.

I commend the fulsome Memoirs of William White, who offers many helpful insights into the early years of the church, and what the founders thought they were doing when they created a body not of the Episcopal churches "of" the states, but of the Episcopal churches "in" the states -- which is to say, not a mere assemblage of independent bodies, but a "union" (their word) bound together organically and with a common central governance for all matters affecting the whole.

Doubtless when the term "sovereign" was used in some contexts in relation to the dioceses, it was to affirm that some powers are in fact exercised locally. But this is a very limited sort of "sovereignty" as it is of "independence."

It is surely to be hoped that the decision in South Carolina will be reversed.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Episcopal Translucency

The Joint Nominating Committee for the next Presiding Bishop has issued an interim report outlining some of the process by which they have proceeded. I remain bemused. I don't really understand why so many of the interim bodies, including the one on which I serve (the Task Force on the Study of Marriage), have felt the need to issue interim reports rather than to wait to issue the final report in what still is called "The Blue Book" but which was rarely blue even when it was a book. 

I don't find fault with the education material such groups have produced (including my own) and I found the Joint Nominating Committee's suite of three historical backgrounders helpful, as I hope some have found the resource on marriage, Dearly Beloved, to be of some help. But I am not amused by the sense of anxiety that continual updates and press releases need to be provided just to prove that these interim bodies are working on the tasks assigned to them.

I'm particularly bemused in the case of the nominating committee's progress reports as all that will matter is the final list of their nominees. There will be ample time to chew over that list, and there will be opportunity to offer other nominations if one's favorite was omitted. It seems that the need for what amounts to constant "information" (which really isn't) that has overtaken the 24-hour news cycle has bred a need to blather and comment.

We seem, as a church, to demand full but offer partial transparency, and to embrace an unhealthy obsession with process rather than clear evaluation of results. This produces a kind of unhelpful translucency that is less informative than opacity, and in the long run about as useful. It is the "form" of information without the "content" — much like the punditry of much of 24-hour "news."

I'm a long-time fan of the old management model DDAE: Discuss, Decide, Act, Evaluate. It is in that last step, Evaluation, that I think the Episcopal Church is at its weakest, and it undermines the beginning of the next cycle of Discussion. We seem constantly to be reinventing wheels rather than going anywhere. (I have been through enough rounds of "Where should '815' be?" to feel like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day.)

So let's think about putting more effort into evaluation of results. That will help to inform the next round of discussion, leading to decision, and then one hopes, action.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Of Confidence and Confidentiality

Issues of disclosure have been much in the news lately. From the scandals plaguing the Roman Church to the debates about the seal of the confessional in the Church of England, to the concerns about closed meetings of Executive Council, and unpublished bylaws at the General Seminary, there appears to be a good deal of confusion about what things, and when and how and to what extent, ought to be kept under wraps.

One of the common reasons advanced for confidentiality concerns “personnel matters.” But when the personnel matter under discussion is misconduct — in some cases to a criminal level — then confidentiality that allows the guilty employee to find another job in a similar setting amounts to conspiracy, and in the long run serves no one well. Even if it did, that is a road down which no one should want to tread.

Another reason for confidentiality is that being allowed to reveal incriminating information about oneself without fear of it going any farther is essential to the ministry of reconciliation in the confessional. The argument here is that few would avail themselves of this ministry without the assurance that what is said will not be held against them. I can understand the pastoral practical side of this, but have been unable to find any dogmatic rationale that supports the notion, particularly given the dominical teaching on the dangers of hypocrisy: that what is said in secret will be made known at length (Luke 12:1-3). The apocalypse is a warning that in the end nothing is covered up that will not be revealed.

Obviously some things do deserve the protection of confidentiality — which at the level of the confessional applies to the act of confession as well as its content. But some things, by their nature, demand public notice. Among these are minutes of meetings, actions taken by boards of directors, and changes made to bylaws. This is particularly the case where the decisions are taken in the name of some larger entity than just those immediately present in the room. Any action that touches a wider constituency ought to be communicated to that constituency.

Above all it is important to distinguish between confidentiality and secrecy. For instance, doctor / patient and attorney / client confidentiality is well understood not to prevent a doctor or lawyer from discussing a case study — with the name of the patient or client concealed.

To apply this to some of the current controversies about publication of actions of church bodies, I have suggested that in part the Chatham House Rule would make good sense in such situations. Under this rule, the subject matter of a closed meeting, and comments made in it, can be shared, but the identity of the speaker and the speaker’s affiliation are not to be revealed. This allows for open discussion of the subject matter without endangering anyone for expressing an opinion that might be controversial.

But in the end, I have no confidence in confidentiality when it amounts to selective secrecy.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

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The Church's Treasury

General Theological Seminary
Commencement Day Eucharist, 1997
(Various Occasions #24)
Psalm 8 - Ecclesiastes 3.1,9-13 - 1 Peter 2.11-17 - Matt 6.19-24
Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

Today’s readings might well be paraphrased as, Don’t Worry be Happy, Be a Good Citizen, and Try Not to Make too Much Money. The first — Don’t Worry Be Happy — is engraved on the outer wall of the Hoffman Refectory, in its more formal Latin version, Carpe diem; the second — Be a Good Citizen — is sound advice only so long as one lives in a good city, a good state.

 Of the three, it is the third, Try Not to Make Too Much Money, that appears to be particularly directed at those who serve in the church. Anyone who goes to seminary on the basis of the promise found on a matchbook cover, Go to College to Increase Your Earning Power, has either pulled the wrong catalogue off the shelf, or is two sandwiches shy of a picnic. True, the church leaves its threshing oxen unmuzzled — but it keeps them on a short leash and moving in circles at a hectic pace. In short, devoting one’s life to the work of the church — as most of us here have chosen to do — or have been chosen to do — is an effective way to follow our Lord’s advice not to lay up treasure on earth.

If, that is, we are talking about the kind of treasure that comes printed with portraits of dead politicians, in various denominations. But there is another kind of treasure that is more beguiling than the folding green. And it exists in various denominations, too: Not fives, tens and twenties, but Episcopal, Roman Catholic, Lutheran... It is a treasure which those who serve the church, and the church itself, are tempted to store up, perhaps compensating for getting less of the kind with a politician’s image and likeness on them: whether that politician be Tiberius Caesar or Andrew Jackson.

This compensation is the treasure of respectability, of stability, of survival achieved by walking the safe road of compromise. It is the treasure of becoming established of becoming an institution.

The First Letter of Peter shows this process at work; it counsels good citizenship as a strategy for survival in the Empire. Fortunately for the church, the Empire got so bad that “good” citizenship became impossible; for if the church was to remain the church it must eventually collide with Caesar.

Those who had counseled accommodation then found themselves called to re-evaluate — surely Saint Peter repented of his advice to honor the emperor when crucified head-down; and just as surely Saint Paul must have reconsidered the wisdom of appealing to Caesar’s justice when he faced Caesar’s sword. Both apostles eventually realized that they could not serve two masters — Christ and Caesar — though too late for them to leave epistles to that effect.

Imperial persecution clarified the church’s vision with the bright light of the refiners fire, and empowered it to see that survival on Caesar’s terms was not worth survival. Thank God for the martyrs whose blood tempered the steel of the early church; thank God for the confessors who realized that the time had passed for playing goody two-sandals.

And, strange as it may sound, thank God for the Caesars, the Domitians and the Diocletians and all the others who gave the church something to stand up to, something to stand up for. It was persecution that reminded the church of its primary mission: not to survive at all costs, not to survive by ceasing to be itself — but to spend itself for the life of the world, as its Lord had done.

It took the Caesars to remind the church that those who seek to save their life will lose it. It took the Caesars to remind the church that it was the body of Christ — Christ crucified under Pontius Pilate, who suffered death and was buried, and only then was raised from the dead. Christ set the pattern for the church’s life. Only by losing one’s life can one’s life be saved; only what dies can be raised again.

Much time has passed since those fiery, foundry days. The world’s animosity towards the church — with a few notable exceptions — has cooled to chilly toleration. And how has the church responded? How does the church expend its energy these days, now that Caesar no longer persecutes so vehemently? Isn’t most of the church’s warfare these days intramural? Where is the church’s treasure being spent — on outgoing mission, or ongoing questions of self-definition?

Is the church laying up treasure in heaven where neither moth nor rust corrupt, and thieves cannot break in — or is it squandering its wealth on the ecclesiastical equivalents of mothballs, Rustoleum, and security systems?

It happens in parishes, national churches, religious orders — it even happens in seminaries! ....so I’m told… The focus shifts from the mission to the mission agency, from the work itself to the procedures, protocols, and policies for carrying out that work; from the apostolic mission to the apostolic order; from the vision to the vision statement.

The church’s vision, once turned outward to take in the needs of a suffering world, turns inward. When this happens, the church’s vision is in danger of the double darkness of which Christ warns in the Gospel — blindness that thinks it sees. The church’s view and perspective become blinded by its own bulk, its own reflection, its own precious self.

When this happens, the church risks its title as a wonderful and sacred mystery and is on the verge of becoming an institution like any other. A church preoccupied with survival rather than with mission, risks abdicating its role as bride of Christ and becoming more like Miss Havisham in Dickens’ Great Expectations.

Preoccupation with self-perpetuation transforms the church from a wedding festival with lamps ablaze and eyes bright with future hope, to a draped and shuttered room whose lonely inhabitant tries in vain to preserve a past that never was.

Am I exaggerating? Think of the energy and resources that have gone into addressing the fears of those who see the Episcopal-Lutheran Concordat as the end of the church as we know it. The Episcopal Church treasures the episcopate, and rightly so — but here is an opportunity to extend the very thing we treasure if we are willing to set aside preoccupation with its substance for a time to focus on its purpose.

The apostolic order is not an end in itself, but the chosen means for the apostolic ministry and the apostolic message:— it is the chosen vessel to bear the good news to the ends of the earth.

We are called and commissioned in that apostolic succession, to that apostolic mission, called to risk what we treasure, to spend what we have for the sake of the gospel, to risk what is most precious to us in order to share it.

And the gospel message we share is strengthened when we share it in a gospel fashion: only those who lose their lives for the sake of the gospel will save them; only what dies can be raised; only what is spent can be redeemed. True wealth, after all, is revealed in what you are willing to spend, not in how much you possess. The life of the church is death to self; and the church is most truly itself when it spends itself with an abandon that matches the liberality of the spendthrift Christ — Christ who gave himself up on the cross, who spent himself completely, who emptied himself and took a servant’s form. And he did it all for love, for the love of his bride, the church.

Christ and his bride are that perfectly mad young couple who store up no treasure — who spend all they have on each other, but having each other need nothing else. You know the story: she cut off her hair and sold it to the wigmaker to buy him a watch-fob; he pawned his watch to buy her a tortoise-shell comb — gifts, that in their purchase and giving were rendered utterly useless and yet infinitely precious, for they represented the gift of the self for the other.

What, then, is the church’s true wealth? Only Christ, and him crucified. Are we mad? Yes, we are, but so is Christ, who with divine madness values each of us poor fragile creatures as chosen and precious treasures. As the old, old, love song tells it, Solomon’s love song, the Song of Songs sung to a Christian tune: Christ is our treasure, and we are his.

Long, long ago, a good deacon faced the powers of Caesar as they oppressed the church. The authorities demanded he turn over the church’s treasures. Expecting him to bring forth gold and silver, how surprised and angered they were when he assembled the poor and the sick and said, This is the church’s treasure.

We — the members of Christ’s body — are the church’s treasure still, because beloved and treasured by Christ, because we are where his heart is, and no moth, no rust, no thief can touch us. We are the treasure of the church, and this holy place is its treasury. This place, and every place where the church gathers, and every place from which it is sent forth, though they be earthen vessels, are God’s treasury. Don’t you ever let anyone tell you they are just institutions. And don’t you ever let anyone make them so. You who teach and you who learn, you who worship and you who proclaim, you who administer and steward and care for the fabric of these vessels, keep your vision clear, always turned to the needs of the world that the church is called to serve. Carpe diem: Seize the day — the time is now. Christ is risen and ascended, and the Spirit is poised to shower us with gifts. Realize your citizenship in God’s kingdom — the country without borders where there are no aliens.

We are Christ’s treasure, and Christ is our treasure, — Christ who gives himself into our hands, precious fragile treasures of bread and wine that feed and strengthen us to spend ourselves in Christ’s service, to turn from the service of self, to do the work God gives us to do in truth and beauty for the common good. May we now and ever spend ourselves freely — spend ourselves selflessly in company with the saints: those gone before, those sitting here now, and those yet to come — all those saints who bought by Christ, are free to serve — Christ’s treasure on earth as he is ours in heaven.

---

Note: as indicated above this sermon was preached in 1997. It still seems timely, in spite of some of the illustrations being dated. However, other circumstances have arisen to replace them, so if you will apply the rule of mutatis mutandis, I share it here.

Carts and Horses

I've held my tongue on the subject for a while now, but I find that proverbial fire burning within.

While there is much to commend in the TREC letter  (on the restructuring of The Episcopal Church) when it comes to practical streamlining and downsizing some of the superstructure of the Episcopal Church (including several proposals I've made myself over the years, such as trimming deputation sizes and retiring some CCABs) I still find myself wondering to what extent we are putting cart before horse — if the horse really exists and it isn't all cart, all form with no real handle on the function.

I raise this because it seems to me that the Great Unanswered Question is: What is this superstructure (PB, GC, EC, etc.) for? What are the ministries that can only, or best, be performed for the good of the church and the world by an [inter]national organ of the ecclesiastical body, so conceived and so constituted.

And I find I can think of precious few things that require or commend such an [inter]national structure: setting the law and liturgy of the church; engaging in formal interreligious and interfaith dialogue and work; [inter]national level mission programs and ministry. These are off the top of my head -- there is likely more; but however much is best or only done at this supreme level, it seems to me that the vast bulk of the work of the church is done in and by the parish, secondly by the diocesan and regional entities, and only thirdly at the national and international level.

And until it is manifestly clear just what work is best done at that level, arguing about how the workforce should be structured to accomplish it is premature — and very likely a waste of time and energy. “Form follows function” should apply to ecclesiastical structures as well as buildings.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Slave of God

Absalom Jones was born a slave but died a priest of God, making the painful transition from house slave to servant in the House of God. Able to buy his own freedom, he worked with Richard Allen to foster the Free African movement, powered by the Gospel.

The Gospel is strong stuff, and its application can change the world — and the church. And although the church often acts as the brake rather than the engine of change, St Thomas African Episcopal Church was received by the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania in 1794, with Jones as deacon a year later, and a priest in 1802. He continued to build the church he served until his death in 1818. The Collect for his feast day appeals:

SET US FREE, heavenly Father, from every bond of prejudice and fear; that, honoring the steadfast courage of your servant Absalom Jones, we may show forth in our lives the reconciling love and true freedom of the children of God, which you have given us in your Son our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

The icon is from my series of "real people" icons; an effort to portray the subject with as little stylization, and as much humanity, as I can muster.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Weaned from a Pickle

The perennial question of the location of the headquarters for The Episcopal Church is on the table once more, in part in response to a resolution from the 2012 General Convention mandating a departure from the Church Center building at 815 Second Avenue, NYC. Note that this resolution only concerns the building, not NYC, as some seem to think. Still, many want that question reopened, even as a major study is going on concerning just what the structure of TEC is to be down the road, including whether it should even have an HQ at all.

The latest step in this peculiar dance is a survey designed to receive input on all sorts of aspects of a possible HQ, including its location. (Disclosure: I tried to take the survey yesterday soon after its announcement, but I think I engaged it as it was still under construction; on my second and successful "go" one of the questions I'd answered in the first round had disappeared.)

Having been a part of many such surveys in the past, however, I do wonder at the soundness of this approach to decision-making. Too many times I've seen survey results ignored as a particular juggernaut presses forward regardless of results. (The adoption of the Revised Common Lectionary is a telling case in point.) It's a good thing Moses didn't survey the Israelites as to location issues. They wanted to go back to Egypt! Oh the leeks, oh the cucumbers! It is hard to be weaned from a pickle.

Frankly, when it comes to the Church Center and its location, I've seen this road traveled so many times it has become extremely tedious. I've been around long enough to see the plans under Presiding Bishop Allin to move to the Seamen's Church Institute undone by city office-space code; the sale of Seabury House in Connecticut; the decades of various studies and plans brought to GC; and the collapse of the General Theological Seminary space-sharing scheme.

Dealing with location issues -- by survey or study or any other means -- prior to making decisions as to restructuring seems to me to be utter madness. Form follows function... or you're stuck with the form and it shapes how you function! And a diet of pickles makes for a sour disposition.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Episcopal Elections

Over at Facebook I posted a comment, as follows, which has engendered a lively discussion.

I am distressed to see that our upcoming election for a suffragan bishop includes provision for caucusing spaces (in the chapels, no less), seconding speeches, and all the paraphernalia of politics. The only times listed for prayer are the opening Eucharist and at Noonday.

I was asked by two of the candidates if I’d give the “seconding” speech. To both I noted that I couldn’t in conscience, as I think these speeches are unnecessary (the diocesan canon allows for them but doesn’t require them) and they contribute to the “popularity contest” that is already too much of the process.

I'd love it if we spent 20 minutes in silent prayer — or singing Taizé or the Psalms — after each ballot instead of caucusing.

But in New York that is likely a lost cause... :-(

What’s your perspective? Or the practice in your diocese? As far as I know, for background, the “caucus model” in NY dates back to the election of Bishop Grein; right after the first ballot, dearly beloved suffragan (and Visitor to BSG) Bishop Walter Dennis, who was the front-runner, collapsed and was rushed to hospital (he recovered, Deo gratias, but was out of the election.) This threw the election into chaos and people started gathering in affinity agglutinations in the various chaples motu proprio. Now it is the way things are done.

Weigh in here or at FB.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Holiness in Action

James Otis Sargent Huntington was a man who believed in life — religious life to be exact; but a religious life lived not in isolation from his fellow pilgrims, but with and among them, in a community consisting not only of the monastics, but of those among whom they served. It is fitting that his feast day is observed in the Episcopal Church not on the day of his death, but on the anniversary of his making life vows on November 25, 1884.

James was a major player in the development of religious life in the Episcopal tradition and context, part of that burgeoning interest in the late 19th century, a flowering of Anglo-Catholic social consciousness and Christian socialism — views not nourished at the bosom of Marx, but perhaps of St Mark, an example of the dangerous power of the Gospel when taken seriously and put into practice.

God be praised for the faithful work of this servant of Christ.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

(Inter)National House

This is not about the W.C. Fields film of that name, but the recent struggles in the Episcopal Church over possible name change for the staff at The Episcopal Church Center to become "The Missionary Society."

 There is nothing new about struggle or tension between the three (or four) entities that serve The Episcopal Church: the General Convention (GC), the Executive (formerly the "National") Council (EC), and the "staff" whether at 281 Park Avenue South ("Church Missions House") or 815 Second Ave ("The Episcopal Church Center", aka ECC). I served in the press and communications office at "815" beginning in the days of John Maury Allin. He always described it as a "service center" there to serve the needs of the church in supporting "SWEEP" — Stewardship, Worship, Education, Evangelism, and Pastoral Care; and of course national and international mission, for which a handy acronym wasn't, well, handy. There was also a finance department to keep those wheels greased, and a communication office (where I served) to support all of the rest in producing resources, print and video. The staff structure was ordered along those lines, and each week the PB would meet with the department heads of each of the "units." The notion seems a bit quaint now, but it seemed to have worked relatively well.

In addition to, and contrasting with this relative clarity, there was significant question as to "whose" staff the staff were: were they the staff of the "National/Executive" Council, or of the PB? This was and is a lively tension; exacerbated by the fact that the General Convention also had offices in the building, but were not "staff" to either the PB or the Council. On that wing of the triangle, there was always some tension between GC and EC as to who was doing what and when.

The Browning years brought a massive combined simplification and complexification to the staff structure, with both consolidation and more levels of hierarchy — including "senior" executives in a whole new — and very well remunerated — level separating the PB from the people actually in charge of the various areas of work. In spite of the evident problems to which this led, it remains more or less the same, with clusters instead of units, and changes in terminology.

Add to the existing tensions between the three structures, the now emerging tensions with DFMS (short for the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America) -- previously a more or less silent partner (due to the overreach of the 19th century urge to make everyone a missionary without asking them first -- a noble gesture but prone to fail as many a noble gesture does). In latter days DFMS primarily served as the skeleton and support for fiscal operations, with very little involvement in the actual program or mission.

The real question that rarely gets asked -- and I do believe the aptly acronym’d "revisioning" task force, TREC, is asking it -- is why a church that functions mostly at the local or regional level needs such a complex entanglement of (inter)national structures? I leave it to others to do the math, but if one looks at the Gross Episcopal Product (for example the total receipts for all parishes in 2008 was over $2 billion... and that doesn't count foundations and auxiliary bodies) and compares it with the relatively small budgets of the GC and EC and ECC (as it was) one begins to wonder if all the turmoil at the (inter)national level is really worth it, and that a radical revisioning as a network isn't the best idea.

As to ECC being known as "815" -- "branding" isn't going to change it. Trying to "create" the next meme isn't going to work. Things catch on because they are catchy, and "The Missionary Society" -- as important (and misunderstood) as mission is -- ain’t. I can recall when someone in the staff there even made a tee-shirt for the Episcopal Church Center (ECC), "815" -- emblazoned with the text of Ecc. 8:15. Look it up, it's quite amusing...

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Untied Thank Offering

There has been a lot of tooing and froing about the fate and future of the United Thank Offering (UTO), and whether or not it should be untied from the structures of the Episcopal Corporation (DFMS), or more closely united to it. You can read all the background as helpfully provided by the Presiding Bishop.

Just this morning, though, I was thinking, "Wouldn't it be simplest for the UTO to incorporate as a 501(c)3 entity, just as did Episcopal Relief and Development?" Then I discovered this had been part of the discussions some years ago, but was nixed, or advised against, by some advisors. To the point of advice, I'm not sure the UTO is bound to follow it. There seems to me to be nothing to stop UTO from incorporating, and there is no need that I can see for Executive Council to "approve" such a movement, since UTO was never formally a part of the institutional structure of DFMS, but an auxiliary entity that functioned, and functioned quite well, primarily as a ministry of and by women (when they were prevented from a large sector of possible ministries in the church). The UTO always worked in cooperation with the existing structures of the church and the Episcopal Church Women, from the parish on up through the dioceses and provinces; and at the national level through the Triennial. It could still continue to do that, but with the financial donations coming directly to UTO (instead of through the parish mechanisms) and grants being made autonomously by their own duly elected board.

When in The Episcopal Church we hear talk of restructuring for greater flexibility and decentralization on one hand, and then moves that seem to be trending towards holding UTO ever closer to the institutional structure, I have to wonder if an important opportunity hasn't been missed.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Maxims on Diocesan Separation

That a diocese may have been an independent entity prior to its entry into union with The Episcopal Church is no more relevant to an asserted right to separate than that a husband was single before he married.

There is no provision in the Constitution of The Episcopal Church for the independence or separation of domestic dioceses from union with the Church.

Dioceses are not sovereign in that they are legally incapable of obtaining their own bishop absent the cooperation and consent of the rest of the Church.

A diocese cannot even divide itself without the consent of General Convention.

And that's enough for now.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Of Church, Decline, and Culture

There has been a lot of statistic-tossing back and forth about the decline of the Mainline Churches in the US, in particular in comparison with such entities as the Southern Baptist Convention. That there has been decline is evident; but the efforts at showing causality seem to me to be hampered by a failure to recognized the differences in culture geographically. When you average things across the whole United States, you tend to miss some important factors.

This might reflect something of the phenomenon of entropy: there is a gradual winding down of things and increasing disorder, yet even while that happens there are “islands” of increasing ordered complexity. So too there may well be islands of growth amidst an over-all trend towards diminishment.

For example, churchgoing is a cultural reality that has been maintained in the South better than in the North. Since the South is a stronghold of the Southern Baptists (duh!) It might make more sense to compare them, and their growth (or decline, as I understand it) with that of dioceses, presbyteries and synods of the mainline churches in those same regions. I know when I was in Memphis two years back I saw a level of churchgoing in all sorts of churches that many in the North would envy. Averaging what is essentially a cultural/regional phenomenon over the whole country is not going to give an accurate picture.

As John Chilton noted in a conversation at the Episcopal Café, you could say the same thing about bowling. It might be helpful to take a look at all sorts of cultural realities and compare their decline and geographic distribution since the 1950s. Is it only the churches that have changed? What about bowling? How has that institution and social phenomenon thrived or declined, and is it tenpins, duckpins or candlepins? What is the most successful “sect” in the realm of Bowlingdom?

The rise and fall of the Drive-In Movie might also make for a good analysis, or even the Cinema itself. Does the rise of the Multiplex reflect the rise of the Megachurch, and for similar reasons? And what relevance does the death of the art house or the neighborhood movie theater have for the plight of small and dwindling churches? In a more mobile culture, perhaps the message to the church is to consolidate the many small neighborhood or village churches into larger and more well-supported few churches — with ample parking!

Context and culture and geography are not lightly to be neglected when seeking to understand social phenomena — of which churchgoing is but one. And distinguishing causality from coincidence is also helpful.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

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Storms and Structure

First, an observation on yesterday’s Gospel: the disciples rock the boat as much as the storm and they forget that Jesus’ presence with them, even sleeping, should be a blessed assurance through the storm and the night.

Second, application: it seems to me that a kind of manic panic has set in at the governing level of our church. From an Executive Council that doesn’t have the time to discuss important issues and frame a coherent budget, to battling proposals that seem more intent on the deck chair arrangement than on the reported mishap down below -- or is it on the bridge? -- and focus only on what is happening at 815 or GC sessions instead of the life of the church in its growing edges and root-tips; we seem to forget that though the church is not immune to the realities of politics and polity, that is not its primary goal or mode of living and working.

So my appeal, brothers and sisters, is that of Jesus, “Peace, be still.” Most importantly, can we focus on actual proposals and legislation free from any attributions of motive or power-play, and judge them on their merits? Could we take a breath , count to ten, and refocus our attention from the ad hominem to the substance of the tasks actually at hand, with less of a sense of urgency and panic and apocalyptic? Think for a moment about just how much the decisions on the budget, and the resolutions of General Convention will touch your parish, or your ministry, for good or ill. Stop trying to solve all the problems and save the world. Jesus did that already. He is asleep in the stern. We can do our part to assist in that ministry and mission, but our efficiency at that task is seriously encumbered by panic and busyness that accomplishes little work. Can we begin by trusting each other rather than assuming the worst? Can we approach our work as colleagues rather than as adversaries?

On the other hand...

I think we are right not to trust “the institution.” It is in the institution that the powers and principalities lurk — as the late, great Walter Wink reminded us. Whatever ill lies in human hearts — even the ill that persuades us its intentions are good — is amplified by the institution.

My suggestion is that we trust each other, or at the very least start from a position of assuming good intentions. And even at that, I think the wise words, “Trust, but verify,” ring true. I by no means intend that we should curtail the debate — just that we should be debating the actual issues, not the personalities or alleged agendas of those who advance one position or another.

That being said, there are the practical problems of our system, and this is where some restructuring is in order. I’ve been around long enough to remember when Executive Council was blind-sided and manipulated in the financial area much to our corporate detriment.

So I think another wise saying is apposite: Measure twice, cut once. We seem instead to have a proliferation of budget cuts being proposed, but some very dicey measurements on which to base them, particularly on the income side. I would not want to live in a house constructed on such a regimen.

One of my concerns is that the Executive Council has too many committees that seem to me to duplicate the work of a number of the standing committees and commissions of the church. This takes them away from their principal work, which I regard as being the Board of Directors of the corporation arm of The Episcopal Church. As a practical matter, as I look at restructuring, this is an area ripe for change. This goes against the proposal to do away with the other committees and commissions or trim them back and let Executive Council do more. I think that is a mistake. I’d be very happy to see the Executive Council focus on administration and let the other busy bodies concentrate more on Mission and Ministry issues. It seems to me that’s what a wise Board of Directors would do.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

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Resource for Polity

Shared Governance: The Polity of the Episcopal Church is now available from Church Publishing and Google Books (with preview) and is making its way into the hands of Deputies to the upcoming General Convention.

The volume is a collection of essays by members of the House of Deputies Special Study Committee on Church Governance and Polity, appointed by President of the House Bonnie Anderson after the 2009 General Convention. I had the pleasure to be the chair of the committee and to work with the members to produce this resource. The essays cover the history and theology that underlies a system of church governance in which decision-making and implementation is shared among all church members, lay and ordained, at every level from the parish to the General Convention. Essays focus on the two Houses of the General Convention, their origin, structure, and interaction; on the role of the presiding officers of each House, and how their offices have changed and evolved since their creation; and on the Executive Council and the other committees, commissions, agencies and boards that function in the periods between sessions of the General Convention. There is also a brief essay on the wider Communion and Church.

The collection is intended specifically as an educational and reflection tool for Deputies to the General Convention, and offers a number of insights particularly geared to their work; however, any Episcopalian wanting to be better informed about how and why our church came to function in the way it does will find the essays helpful. Throughout the collection, effort has been made to provide an accurate perspective for the reader, and to dispel or correct some of the prevailing mythology concerning the origins and practice of our shared governance.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG