Further Thoughts on General Convention

A Message from Bishop Lillibridge to the Diocese of West Texas
Link to PDF file for Printing

Thursday, June 29, 2006

1.  This is my second correspondence to you following the General Convention in Columbus, Ohio.   This is quite a bit longer than my first message to you, so I ask that you take a few quiet moments, get in a quiet place, and read and reflect on these words.  I realize that we live in a sound-bite world, but there is no way to send you these thoughts in a brief message.  In addition, the Archbishop of Canterbury issued a lengthy statement on June 27 regarding the General Convention and what the future of Anglicanism might look like.  I encourage you to read that statement, which may be found on our website (along with other General Convention items) at http://www.council-dwtx.org.  I will be reflecting on his remarks in this statement.  I have also numbered these paragraphs to help make the reading easier.

 2.  Before I go into depth about our challenges, I want to acknowledge that there were certainly some good things that came out of General Convention.  These good things, both small and large, may be not as "press worthy" as our tensions, but they are nonetheless important.  First and foremost, we renewed our commitment to the Millennium Development Goals, an eight point declaration that is focused on eradicating extreme poverty and hunger by the year 2015.   We also agreed to continue our conversation with the United Methodist Church to begin interim Eucharistic sharing, much like we did several years ago as a precursor to full communion with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.  We added observances to the Church Calendar, including Florence Li Tim-Oi, Janani Luwum, William Temple, and C.S. Lewis.  We also issued the first authorization for a remembrance on the calendar for the Dorchester Chaplains - a group of four chaplains who died after offering their life vests to others when the U.S.S. Dorchester sank in 1943 at the height of World War II.  They linked arms as the ship went down.  We renewed our commitment to youth and young adults in both word and deed.  We urged the church to work to ensure that governments provide programs that combat social and economic conditions that place children at risk or diminish children's ability to achieve their full potential in the world.   There were others as well, but this at least gives you some idea of a few of the items that might get lost in the larger conversations.

 3.  As responses continue to be made to the General Convention - some being helpful and hopeful and others not - I want to give you an important reminder.  As the body of Christ, it is always important to remember to place our thoughts and conversations in a spiritual and scriptural context, and therefore I offer you some excellent words of St. Paul to the Colossians:

 4.  Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.  And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ…Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should.  Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity.  Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.
(Colossians 4.2-6)

5.  Each of us has a choice to make.  We can bemoan the convention and the state of the church, or we can, as this scripture clearly states, "make the most of every opportunity."  Since nothing is too hard for the Lord (Gen 18.14), I am choosing to make the most of this opportunity as well.  I have absolutely no doubt that God is in the midst of our struggles, even as we might be confused and frustrated:  The wind blows wherever it pleases.  You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going.  So it is with everyone born of the Spirit (John 3.8).  Where is the Spirit moving among us following General Convention?  We must pray fervently and listen carefully to discern the answer; and this discernment is part of an ongoing process in our church.    

 6.  First, a word about interpretation of what we hear and see.  One of the realities in life is that we bring our own perspective and our own filter to our hearing and seeing.  We all know that two people can see the same thing and come away with very different impressions.  That is where we are today as members of the Episcopal Church.  Even a quick reading of websites or conversations with others reveals serious differences of opinion on how the events of General Convention unfolded and what the implications are for the church at large, our own diocese in general, and local congregations and individual Episcopalians in particular.

7.  As you can imagine, I have heard from all perspectives in the last week.  For some people, General Convention was hardly a blip on the screen; for others it is of enormous consequence.  If you could sit in my office for a day, I think you would be amazed at the breadth across our diocese and our church.  In addition to some very real heartache, there are, of course, the inevitable distortions and assumptions.

 8.  Perhaps my biggest challenge at the moment is leading conflicting theological, spiritual, and emotional agendas of disparate parties.  Many within our diocese have differing views of what is or isn't Godly and where the Holy Spirit is or isn't moving.  I am committed to a Godly civility and a Christ-like charity in dealing with the polarizations with which we are faced.  I pledge myself to bear with others with whom I do not agree, knowing that God patiently bears with me.  I encourage you to do the same.

 9.  As I exercise the ministry of bishop across our diocese, I find much graciousness and ministry with those in our diocese who are gay and lesbian.  I have been in many conversations with our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters in the three years that I have served as a bishop, and certainly during the twenty four years that I have been ordained.  I have found in them a deep love of the Lord Jesus Christ and a spiritual desire to serve God through the Church.  In many cases, they have been rejected or marginalized, and that runs counter to the witness of Jesus in the Gospel as He continually reached out to those on the fringes of society.  The Church has too often turned its back on these seekers, and for that we need to seek forgiveness, myself included.

10.  As we live into these often turbulent times, I want to remind you that our baptismal covenant calls us to "strive for justice and peace among all people and to respect the dignity of every human being" as well as to "seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbors as ourselves" (Book of Common Prayer, page 305).  Whatever one's theological opinion might be regarding blessing same gender relationships or ordaining gays or lesbians who are in a same gender relationship, it is my expectation that we would all agree and fully recognize that gay and lesbian persons are children of God who are entitled, with all other persons, to the love, acceptance, and pastoral concern and care of the Church.  For this reason, I will be careful with my words and open to conversation as we seek to serve Christ in the Diocese of West Texas.  Jesus would expect no less.  I exhort you to do the same, for the gay and lesbian Christians here and elsewhere often times have been mistreated in the name of Christ.

11.  Having said those things, I need to be honest with you in saying I am of the opinion that the Convention's response to Windsor, and especially the spirit in which it was offered in the last frantic hours, was much less than what we should have done.  It was however, all that we could do as a diverse church.  We remain a denomination with a confusing position on human sexuality, one where our official teaching and our practice do not walk hand in hand.  As the Archbishop of Canterbury said in his response, "the decision of the Episcopal Church to elect a practicing gay man as a bishop was taken without even the American church itself having formally decided as a local Church what it thinks about blessing same-sex partnerships."   

12.  As I have said before, the issues at the convention regarding human sexuality were framed politically and not theologically.  In addition, there were too many special interest groups at work for their own agenda.  This is not only unwise, but it can be dangerous.  When in difficult and unfamiliar waters, you don't slam the throttle down and declare "full steam ahead."  You take soundings and you take them often. Unfortunately, there were too many at General Convention who seemed too willing to simply press on with "full steam ahead." 

 13.  When we are forced to legislate and vote on theological issues, the inevitable result is that winners and losers are created.  The irony coming out of this convention is that so many on different sides see themselves as the "losers".  Maybe God will use this brokenness to bring about healing and transformation.  Certainly this is a focus of my prayers.  

14.  As I mentioned earlier, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, issued a statement on June 27 entitled "The Challenge and Hope of Being an Anglican Today" wherein he reflects on the General Convention and the future implications for the Anglican Communion.  Let me turn to his statement for a moment.

15.  He notes that among many questions facing us at this time, the issue before the Anglican Communion is a question "about how we make decisions corporately with other Christians."

16.  Regarding two of the central issues in our life, he writes that it is possible to "give the strongest support to the defense of homosexual people against violence, bigotry, and legal disadvantage, to appreciate the role played in the life of the church by people of homosexual orientation, and still to believe that this doesn't settle the question of whether the Christian Church has the freedom, on the basis of the Bible, and its historic teachings, to bless homosexual partnerships as a clear expression of God's will.  That is disputed among Christians, and, as a bare matter of fact, only a small minority would answer yes to the question."  On the issue of practicing gay bishops, he notes "there has been no such agreement, and it is not unreasonable to seek for a very much wider and deeper consensus before any change is in view, let alone foreclosing the debate by ordaining someone, whatever his personal merits…"

17.  Regarding the Windsor resolutions of the General Convention (which are also posted on the diocesan website I mentioned in paragraph one), the Archbishop states that the resolutions "have not produced a complete response to the challenges of the Windsor Report" but he does acknowledge the "extremely hard work that went into shaping the wording of the final formula" (B-033).  He then comments that the pre-emptive action taken in 2003 in the United States "has made such a debate harder not easier, that it has reinforced the lines of division and led to enormous amounts of energy going into ‘political' struggle with and between churches in different parts of the world."

18.  As Anglicans, actions by one part of the Communion affect other parts of the Communion, and quoting Dr. Williams again, "everything depends on what generally have been unspoken conventions of mutual respect.  When these are felt to have been ignored, it is not surprising that deep division results…Thus if other churches have said, in the wake of events of 2003 that they cannot remain fully in communion with the American Church, this should not be automatically seen as some kind of blind bigotry against gay people.  Where such bigotry does show itself it needs to be made clear that it is unacceptable…"

19.  Then the Archbishop moves to the real heart of the matter with regard to life in Communion, "…whatever the presenting issue, no member Church can make significant decisions unilaterally and still expect this to make no difference to how it is regarded in the fellowship; this would be uncomfortably like saying that every member could redefine the terms of belonging as and when it suited them…The nature of prophetic action is that you do not have a cast-iron guarantee that you're right…The Church worldwide is not simply the sum total of local communities.  It has a cross-cultural dimension that is vital to its health and it is naïve to think that this can survive without some structures to make it possible.  An isolated local Church is less than a complete Church."

20.  These quotes are just a few from the Archbishop's remarks, and of course they do not sit well with some.  I, though, agree with his analysis.  This then leads to the question, "Now what?"  Again, let me turn to the Archbishop's own words.  Keep in mind that these words are his ideas, not the final word on what the Anglican Communion might ultimately look like.  Without a doubt, these are painful words for him to speak and for us to hear, but we are being pushed towards a yet undefined change in the Communion, and we cannot bury our head in the sand and pretend that things will remain the same.  At the same time, I am not sounding some kind of alarm and pronouncing that we are breaking apart - nothing is further from my intention. 

21.  Dr. Williams notes that what lies ahead "is not going to look exactly like anything we have known so far" and "the idea of a ‘covenant' between local Churches is one method that has been suggested, and it seems to me the best way forward.  It is necessarily an ‘opt-in' matter."  He then goes on to reflect on what this might look like, including what he calls "constituent" churches and "churches in association."  The "associated churches" would have no direct part in the decision making of the "constituent churches" and he acknowledges that this, of course, leaves many unanswered questions.  He notes again that "there is no way in which the Anglican Communion can remain unchanged by what is happening at the moment." 

22.  Obviously, then, you need to know how I, as bishop, interpret all of these things and the course on which the Diocese of West Texas is set.  We, as a diocese, and me as your bishop, remain fully committed to the Windsor Report.  This is abundantly clear in the overwhelming support of the resolutions regarding The Windsor Report by our Diocesan Councils in both 2005 and 2006.  I will work with other bishops, dioceses, and leaders who share my passion for remaining in both the Anglican Communion and the Episcopal Church.  I am deeply committed to our biblical foundations and to the principles of mainstream Anglicanism, each of which are so well articulated in the Windsor Report.  I am also deeply committed to the vows I made at my ordination, particularly to "guard the faith, unity, and discipline of the church" and to "boldly proclaim and interpret the Gospel of Christ, enlightening the minds and stirring up the conscience of your people" (Book of Common Prayer, page 518).   

23.  In all of this, I do not want there to be any perception that either I or the diocese is making plans to "leave" the Episcopal Church.  Nothing could be further from what I am trying to do.  At the same time, I cannot sit idly by and accept the status-quo.  I am deeply concerned about the direction of the Episcopal Church as a national church.  The plain truth is that we are in a season (for an unknown period of time) when some difficult decisions are going to have to be made with regard to Anglicanism.  I am committed to preparing the Diocese of West Texas, as a community, to face fully into those decisions, whatever they may be and whenever they may come.  I am very grateful to you, the wonderful and diverse people of West Texas, for your support to me and to one another.  I truly believe that we have something healthy and encouraging to offer the wider communion, and this will be a focus of my leadership in the months ahead.  I intend to fully accept the charge at my ordination as a bishop to "be one with the apostles" and "share in the leadership of the Church throughout the world."  I will work to honor the heritage of "those of every generation who have looked to God in hope."

24.  In the congregations that I have had the privilege of serving, I have worked toward a vision of what our Christian community might become under the watchful eye of God's Holy Spirit.  This certainly wasn't something that I was able to accomplish by myself.  I have been blessed to have worked with gifted, committed, talented, and visionary leadership to bring about Spirit-filled change, and I expect the same in the office of bishop as I work with you to help bring a bit of the Kingdom to our corner of God's creation. 

25.  Yes, I believe there are systemic problems with the General Convention and these problems actually hinder our mission as the Church.  And you should know that I am not simply content to help manage a diseased system nor am I resigned to accepting these things as the way that they must be.  I intend to lead and work for change in our church, and I need your help in doing this.  This likely will be a focus of my entire episcopacy.  But it will not be the only focus of my episcopate, because I am compelled by the Gospel mandate to build up God's Church in the Diocese of West Texas.  I have many things I am excited about in mission and ministry, and I will bring all my energies to strengthening the Diocese of West Texas and our place in the Anglican Communion.  Again, I will need your help in this.   Engaging in this holy calling requires extraordinary patience, wisdom, endurance, and sacrifice by all involved.    

26.  Obviously, there will be much more to come and I have no illusion that our work will be completed in our lifetime.  It never is.  But I wanted to share my thoughts with you as we continue to be God's Church in this great diocese.  As the author of Hebrews writes in regard to many of the faithful who faced extreme adversity in their own day:  These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised.  God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect (11.39-40).     

27.  I know there is pain throughout the Church now, and am aware this message carries some as well.  But we cannot be consumed by that or any other one thing, or the devil will have carried the day.  I see this as an opportunity to recommit to the many ministries to which we are called, lay and clergy alike.  That is a Godly thing to do.  The Spirit will carry us through, and that gives me great energy and hope.  The expression of the Church is most fully appreciated and lived at the local level, so I call on you to do everything in your power to build up your congregation.  They need you and you need them.  And God will not be disappointed in our best efforts. 

28.  I have prayerfully attempted to follow the words I quoted in the Colossians passage when I began this message to you.  I pray this message will be received by you as one of grace and "seasoned with salt."  I pray that God opened a door for you through these words as you read them, even as God opened a door for me as I wrote them.  And so, let us indeed make most of every opportunity, and ask God's guidance as we seek to bring our wills in line with the Divine will. 

God bless you in the service of Christ.  May Grace abound.