St Paul, A Slave Girl, the Holy Spirit, and the Presiding Bishop

The Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, the Most Revd Katharine Jefferts Schori, delivered a sermon on May 12, the Seventh Sunday of Easter, at All Saints Church in Steenrijk, Curaçao, which is in the Episcopal Church's Diocese of Venezuela. The first reading for that day was from Acts 16, which recounts the experience Paul and Silas had in Philippi, where they cast out a demon from a fortune-telling slave girl, and were then imprisoned at the behest of her traffickers on account of the economic harm the exorcism had caused them. 

This sermon has slowly become a bit of "a thing" in cyberspace over the nearly two weeks since it was delivered. Here's why:

Paul is annoyed at the slave girl who keeps pursuing him, telling the world that he and his companions are slaves of God.  She is quite right.  She’s telling the same truth Paul and others claim for themselves. But Paul is annoyed, perhaps for being put in his place, and he responds by depriving her of her gift of spiritual awareness.  Paul can’t abide something he won’t see as beautiful or holy, so he tries to destroy it.  It gets him thrown in prison.  That’s pretty much where he’s put himself by his own refusal to recognize that she, too, shares in God’s nature, just as much as he does – maybe more so! 

Criticism has been fierce, beginning with all but one of the comments on the ENS website posting of the text.

This is awkward. Because of my position in the system, Bishop Jefferts Schori is not an abstraction to me. She is someone from whom I have sat across a table in several meetings of the House of Bishops. She is someone who sends me a hand-written note on my birthday and the anniversary of my consecration. She is someone who very kindly checked in on me by email while I was recovering from heart surgery, for which I was immensely grateful.

Yet, I feel constrained by the vows I took when I was ordained a bishop--vows that she herself formally required of me--to "guard the faith, unity, and discipline of the Church of God." These vows do not permit me to remain silent, even as I also remain respectful and charitable. And precisely because the Presiding Bishop is a real person to me, someone I will have to once again look in the eye several weeks from now, I'm not saying anything about her that I would not say to her; in fact, I will be sending her a link to this blog post as soon as it's up.

To call Bishop Jefferts Schori's exegesis of Acts 16 "strained" or "eccentric" is too mild. It is utterly bizarre. But others have done an adequate job fisking the sermon. I'm going to cut right to what seems to me a rather larger and more fundamental issue, which is the duty of all Christians, but particularly those in ordained leadership, to operate from within the tradition, as an insider looking out, and not from a critical distance, as an outsider looking in. The Christian tradition (a term I use in what I think is an Eastern Orthodox sense, inclusive of scripture, liturgy, ascesis, and the mainstream of theology) is certainly an appropriate object of critical inquiry by detached outsiders, whether sympathetic or hostile. But such critical inquiry is not in the remit of a bishop; in fact, bishops pretty much surrender the option of engaging in that sort of work the moment they are consecrated. A bishop is, by definition, by job description, thoroughly a conservative, operating as a custodian of the tradition and articulating an insider's point of view. Is there room on the margins for prophetic voices that challenge the establishment, speaking words of truth and justice? Yes, there certainly is room for those voices. But they are not the voices of bishops. It is, rather, the job of bishops, speaking as consummate insiders, to equip the baptized faithful to listen to the voices from the margins and discern between true prophets and false ones.

As an insider looking out, as an apologist and cheerleader for the establishment, a bishop sits under the authority of the tradition, particularly the authority of sacred scripture. There are interpretive roads that are open to others--outsiders looking in--that are properly closed to bishops (and, by extension, to priests and others who preach and teach). In Acts 16, the author (presumably Luke) portrays Paul and Silas as the good guys, the slave girl as the exploited victim, and her "owners," along with the demon that possessed her, as the bad guys. What Paul did, operating in the power of the Holy Spirit, was to liberate an oppressed person. There is a homiletical treasure trove available here without disturbing this essential dynamic. To stray outside it only tortures the text. And I suspect that Bishop Katharine's concern that we recognize the image of God in one another could have been well-supported by the readings for Easter VII without so straying.

One of the great temptations for either a theologian or a pastor is to be original. It's a tonic to the ego. Under the right circumstances, a theologian can get away with it. St Paul certainly did! A pastor, by contrast, eschews originality. A pastor, a bishop, is a relay runner, handing along (para-dosis, the root of "tradition") the baton to the next runner, the next generation. Originality is not compatible with that job description.

Conciliation

Three days ago the Presiding Bishop's office released the text of the Accord reached between nine bishops--of which I am one--and those who filed charges against us last June under Title IV, the clergy discipline canon. In January, representatives of the Complainants and Respondents came to Richmond, Virginia, where we were joined by a professional mediator appointed by the Presiding Bishop. This document is the result of the process begun at that meeting, and is named in the canon as "conciliation." All the parties have agreed to it, the respondents are indemnified from future action in the matter, and the case is closed.

"Conciliation" is a bizarrely inappropriate word to describe what has happened. Going into the January meeting, we bore no ill will toward our accusers, and welcomed the opportunity to meet them face to face and talk things out. Today, I think it's safe to say that all nine of us are processing some degree of anger and are feeling substantially alienated from those who brought the charges against us. We feel manipulated and victimized. We are nowhere near happy about this outcome, even though we stand by our decision to accept the Accord.

Some have accused us of cowardly capitulation. I can understand this reaction. If someone had shown me the agreement I signed at the time the charges were made known, I would have rejected it out of hand. So some explanation is in order.

The rhetorical tone of the Accord is certainly derisive and hostile toward the Respondents. We come off as downright obsequious. This abusive tone is something we made a considered decision to swallow for the sake of putting the matter behind us. But it is vitally important to make a careful distinction between the tone of the document and its substance. In particular, please note that ...

• We admitted to no misconduct or any form of wrongdoing. The Accord contains no "finding" of guilt on our part, and the Complainants signed it!
• We reaffirmed our belief in the assertions of our amicus brief. We continue to believe that the polity of the Episcopal Church as characterized by the 2009 Bishops' Statement on Polity is true and correct. We have not in any way backed away from this position. Yes, we acknowledged that it is "likely a minority view." Indeed, it probably is at this time. But this does not make it any less true.

Some have expressed consternation that we acknowledged that we are subject to the Dennis Canon. Why the dismay? It's a canon, and all clergy are subject to all the canons. We acknowledge that at our ordination. This does not mean the amici endorse or like the Dennis Canon. The matter at hand doesn't even have anything to do with the Dennis Canon. This was no concession at all.

We have also been criticized for our laudatory language toward the bishops and other leaders of the "continuing" dioceses. First, see above re what the obsequious tone buys us. But also note that the language is identical to that of two resolutions passed by the House of Bishops, the second time at last July's General Convention, where the amici who were present there joined in the unanimous vote. I don't recall hearing any criticism for that vote then, but it's exactly the same as what we have said in the Accord.

We also agreed not to file any more briefs or affidavits until General Convention considers the question of bishops filing briefs and affidavits. But this is entirely moot. We have made our point about the polity of our church in Texas and Illinois courts. Those points are now matters of public record. There is no more reason for us to intervene as we did to protect the truth about TEC's polity and interests of our own dioceses.

When a corporation is sued by a disgruntled customer or former employee, its legal counsel often advises the management to settle out of court, even though they believe the lawsuit is frivolous or otherwise unjust. To take it to trial would be time-consuming and costly, even if it resulted in exculpation. Reaching a settlement is nearly always offensive at an emotional level, but is often the right thing to do when considered rationally. This is the position the amici were in. If we had declined to sign this accord, the chances are that the matter would have been taken to the next level--a hearing leading to a finding. We would have had to retain legal counsel, at great expense. The process would have voraciously eaten time and energy, preventing us from providing the kind of godly leadership and pastoral care to the flocks committed to our charge. And there was no guarantee we would prevail at trial. We may well have been subject to suspension and/or monetary fines, which would also have hampered our ministry and the life of our dioceses even more. 

So we opted to cut our losses and live to fight another day. We did not compromise on anything of essential importance. We intend to keep the conversation about polity alive in the councils of the Episcopal Church. We do feel battered and wounded. This has been a demeaning experience. We are dismayed that some we would consider friends feel like we have let them down. We face the future with faith and hope, even as we realize there will continue to be obstacles and difficulties in the witness we believe ourselves called to bear.

(I use the first person plural pronoun a lot in this post. Actually, I only speak for myself, though I am fairly confident my colleagues would agree with how I have characterized the matter.)

Now See This

This is a message from several ordained and lay leaders, mostly younger (which is exciting), that is worthy of consideration. I can't sign since I'm a member of the group to whom the letter is directed. But I encourage signing.

Pointing to Jesus: Toward Understanding the Newtown Massacre

I'm old enough to remember JFK's assassination, the Texas clock tower sniper, Son of Sam, Jonestown, 911, Fort Hood, Virginia Tech, and probably other horrors that are not now coming to mind. With the exceptions of a presidential murder and a terrorist attack on our largest city and our capital, I can't recall the national attention being galvanized the way it has been in the wake of Friday's killings at Sandy Hook School in Newtown, Connecticut. How can those who profess Christian faith account for this, or otherwise put it into some meaningful context?

The reason this incident ranks so high on the horror scale is probably because most of the victims of the Sandy Hook shooter were children, and rather young children at that. Anyone who is a parent or grandparent, or can imagine being a parent or grandparent, is pretty much turned into a mass of quivering jelly by the mere thought of what happened in Newtown. It is essentially the sum of all our fears. But that's not the real horror. The real horror is this: Yes, on December 14, 28 innocent people (and I include the shooter in the number, who was an innocent victim of his own mental illness) lost their lives suddenly and violently at Sandy Hook School. But I'm quite certain that at least 28 others, and probably many times over, also lost their lives suddenly and violently on the same day, just in our own country, to say nothing of the rest of the world. Each of those lives was equally precious as the lives lost in Newtown. Each of those victims have people who love them, and whose hearts are broken today. And there will be more tomorrow, and the day after that. Our attention is arrested when such events are aggregated, when they happen in one place and at one time. But they happen every day, and that is the real tragedy.

Human beings live under the power of sin and death. Life is nasty, brutish, and short for a great majority of people in this world. That is a fundamental data point of our experience. And delivering us from this power is precisely what we mean by salvation, when we say that God saves us. God's project, as it were, is to bring forth a new creation, one in which perfect love reigns supreme (which itself obviates any need for justice or peace), and every tear is wiped away. 

So when the world asks us, as Christian believers, "Where was God at Sandy Hook School?", there (almost literally) are no words--or, at least, not very many. The best thing we can do is point--as always, pointing to Jesus. We point to Jesus, lying in a feeding trough in a barn as an innocent newborn infant--completely vulnerable, completely exposed--and say simply, "There is God." And there is no truer statement we could make, because there is God; indeed, God with us. We then point to the cross, to a naked and bleeding Jesus dying there, still as innocent as the day he was born, and we say, "There is God." And there is no truer statement we could make, because there is God; indeed, God for us. 

The only other word we can then speak--or, perhaps, not speak at all, but sing--is an ancient hymn that is preserved in the Eastern liturgies, but some westerners know: "Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life." When used liturgically, this hymn is sung over and over again, at increasing tempo and increasing volume. It is worth singing over and over, at increasing temp and increasing volume. It is precisely what we can say when the horror we confront is untellable. It is what we must say. While the wound is fresh, we cannot say very much more, and we ought not to say anything less.

Another Trigger Gets Pulled

The appropriate expression, I believe, is "shocked but not surprised." The Presiding Bishop's office announced today that it has interpreted public statements by the Bishop of South Carolina as a de facto request that he be formally relieved of the obligations of ordained ministry in the Episcopal Church, and that she has indeed granted that presumed request, and so, by implication, declared the office vacant. This is one of the chess pieces that needed to get moved into order to clear the way for the erection of a reconfigured "continuing" Episcopal diocese in the low country of South Carolina. How this impacts the adjudication of the earlier charge that he had already long since abandoned TEC by a public renunciation of its discipline by abetting the amendment of the diocesan constitution to remove accession to the canons (not the constitution) of TEC remains to be seen. It does now all seem moot, but--who knows?--maybe the March 2013 House of Bishops meeting will still stake it up.

I have already delivered myself of my deepest thoughts and feelings on this matter in my previous two posts on this blog, so I won't re-plow that ground. Well, maybe just a little:

Bishop Lawrence has, indeed, made it publicly clear that he no longer considers himself an Episcopalian. And as there are clearly people within his diocese who do wish to be Episcopalian, it seems fair enough that the church at large work with them to push the reset button on the presence of the Episcopal Church in that area. But let's be honest: Mark Lawrence "left" the Episcopal Church the way someone "leaves" the top floor of a burning skyscraper: It was a voluntary act, but not one he would have chosen except under the most extremely anomalous circumstances. For any practical purpose, he was pushed.

If the rest of the church had just been able to let the Diocese of South Carolina be what it is, we wouldn't be in this pastoral and constitutional mess. What they did to their constitution left it no different materially than the constitutions of a whole bunch of other dioceses that nobody seems to be picking on. They continued to participate in the life of the larger church, even if they did grumble a bit. But since when is grumbling the unpardonable sin?

Yet, elements within the diocese simply could not abide life in the margin. So they conspired to abuse the Title IV canons on abandonment. The first time, they were unsuccessful, and Bishop Lawrence was exonerated. Then the composition of the Disciplinary Board for Bishops changed and the votes were suddenly there. In the absence of any double jeopardy protection in Title IV, they made it stick the second time. So a small group of disgruntled Episcopalians within the diocese, with an assist from a majority of the Disciplinary Board for Bishops, have succeeded in fomenting chaos. The damage they have caused is untellable.

Did they have help from outside? There is no lack of speculation in that direction, but I have no direct knowledge. If they did, though, whoever helped them is equally culpable.

Among the many victims of this disaster are parishes--with their clergy and faithful--who are in theological sympathy with the majority of the diocese, but disagree with the decision to leave TEC, and, in fact, have no desire or intention of doing so. Now they are faced with the distasteful prospect of making common cause with their offenders--those who instigated the apocalypse--or finding some other less unpalatable way forward. There are no "good" solutions. Our only hope, collectively, is to find some that are less bad than others.

Epic Fail

The deed is done. The Diocese of South Carolina has formalized its separation from the Episcopal Church. The world at large will pay scant heed to this, which is appropriate. After all, terror is raining down on the inhabitants of Israel and Gaza--though, ironically, the same fear-based escalation of rhetoric and violence (thankfully, only verbal violence in the church setting) lies beneath both stories.

I'm beginning this post in my head, but I'm going to end it in my heart--or, more accurately, perhaps, in my gut.

Under what circumstances is it appropriate to sever formal institutional ecclesial communion? This is a question I have lived with and struggled with for years turned into decades. It should come as no surprise to anyone who knows me that I come at this question from a fundamentally Catholic perspective, which is to say that I understand the Church as an essentially visible organism. Institutional disunity is real disunity. My friends of a more Protestant bent (Anglican and otherwise) are able to be less anxious about schism, pointing to an underlying spiritual unity among believers that smooths out those rough places where we are still at odds with one another at a visible level. Catholics enjoy that luxury to a rather more limited extent.

For better or for worse, my lodestar on this question has been a rather obscure 19th century Church of England ecclesiologist by the name of William Palmer, particularly his 1838 Treatise on the Church of Christ. Palmer sets a rather high bar for justifiable schism. In order to separate oneself in good conscience from the ecclesial body in which one finds oneself, that church must have, in effect, ceased to be a church. And how does a church cease to be a church? By advancing heresy that is substantial, formal, and perduring. This means that a break can't be over a relatively inconsequential theological nicety. And it can't be over the mere presence of error or false teaching in a church, even if that false teaching is expounded at the highest levels of leadership, and even if it is over a question of major theological importance. This is because, by Palmer's standard, the false teaching, to be a matter that justifies schism, must be formal--that is, embedded in the official formularies of the church; namely, the core liturgical sources. But even major formal heresy doesn't "unchurch" a church, according to Palmer, because, in order for that to happen, the major, formal heresy must endure over multiple generations. Only when all three of the tests are met--substance, formality, and duration--does an ecclesial body lose its ecclesial identity, and thereby release its members from the obligation of continued communion.

There is widespread theological error in the Episcopal Church. It is held and taught at the highest levels.  And it is not minor error; it concerns the essence of divine revelation itself, and, most recently, manifests itself primarily in the area of theological anthropology--What is the human person? What is the nature and extent of the "fallenness" of human nature? What is the transcendent significance of the fact that we are created "male and female"? And while I think it's fair to say that actual heresy is not expounded widely, when it is, it is tolerated and its proponents tend to suffer no sanctions.

But ... and this is as important a but as one can imagine ... this major error is not--yet, at any rate--formal. It is material, but not formal. The 1979 Book of Common Prayer is not a perfect document, but it is an orthodox expression of the Catholic faith as we have received it in the Anglican tradition. There are authorized liturgical texts that are theologically problematic (Enriching Our Worship, for one, and, certainly, I Will Bless You and You Will Be a Blessing). But these are not core liturgical documents. It is not only possible, but easy, to worship regularly using the texts and rubrics of the Prayer Book in a way that is orthodox by every criterion. It is possible--if a priest wishes to do so--to lead worship, teach, and provide pastoral care in a manner consonant with the tradition of classical Anglicanism in most dioceses of the Episcopal Church.

Nor has such theological error as we have in the Episcopal Church yet met the test of duration. There just hasn't been enough time. So, even if we were in formal error--which I contend we are not--Palmer's conditions, which I have now acknowledged as my own conditions, would not yet have been met, and, indeed, cannot be met within my lifetime, given that I'm in my sixties. So it looks like the Episcopal Church is stuck with me, and I with the Episcopal Church. I suspect that neither of us is always necessarily overjoyed by that fact, but there it is, nonetheless.

It is the aggregation of these considerations that shapes my view of recent events in South Carolina. With the caveat that I am not "on the ground" there, and have the luxury of observing events from a distance, even though I am in complete theological sympathy with the diocese with respect to the enormities inflicted on Episcopalians who swim in the mainstream of the Anglican tradition, I believe the action taken by their special convention on November 17 was not only unnecessary, not only ill-advised, not only a strategic and tactical blunder, but profoundly wrong.

OK, that's my head talking. Now I'm going to attempt to engage my heart and my gut (as much as an INTJ is capable of).

I am in grief, and it only compounds my pain to say what I've just said--in effect, to presume to render judgment--about people who are not abstractions to me, but who represent relationships that I treasure. So I'm going to speak to my friends in South Carolina, while allowing others to eavesdrop: I think I understand, at a feeling level, why you did what you did. I suspect you are feeling a sense of release and freedom today, and an optimistic vision of the future, having sloughed off the oppressive yoke of 815. So I'm here to tell you--your freedom comes at a cost, and the cost is borne by your friends, many who are outside of your diocesan family, but also some within it, who do not wish to take the action determined by the majority. We remain your friends--at least I remain your friend--but our standing in the church you have left is now significantly weaker than it was a few days ago. If the understanding of TEC's polity that those in your diocese have so articulately propounded--namely, that the Episcopal Church has no higher authority within the boundaries of the Diocese of South Carolina than the Bishop of South Carolina--is true, then your departure, ironically, makes it more challenging for the rest of us to continue to contend for that interpretation. (And need I mention that some of us have contended for that interpretation at a personal cost that is as yet undetermined?) The vote of your convention only deepens the chaos and intensifies the polarization that has gripped the Anglican Communion. I know you are people who love and serve the Lord with all your heart, so it is with trepidation, and through tears, that I say to you: I don't think this is of God. I don't think what you have done pleases God. If my language seems indelicate or intemperate, chalk it up to my feeling hurt. Hurt by you. Of course, I believe God is a consummate opportunist, so I expect what you have done will be redeemed, turned into good, somehow and at some time. But is not the fruit of righteousness.

Now I turn my attention in the other direction, and I'm going to use we/us first person plural language, because ... I remain an Episcopalian.

We are immeasurably impoverished as a result of this fiasco. South Carolina is one of our founding dioceses. It is a vibrant and healthy diocese, and the only one to have shown a persistent pattern of numerical growth over a period of several years when the Episcopal Church as a whole has been steadily shrinking. Their departure only hinders our witness to a society that desperately wants to hear a word of hope and reconciliation from the disciples of him who came into this world to break down all dividing walls of hostility. It also further weakens our position with the Global South majority of worldwide Anglicanism. It is tragic in every dimension.

And we ourselves bear the lion's share of responsibility. There are already voices in our midst that are calling Bishop Lawrence a liar. But Mark Lawrence is no liar. I would bet everything that is sacred to me that he took the vows of his ordination to the episcopate in pristine good faith. If the rest of us would simply have left him and his diocese alone, November 17 would never have happened. He inherited an extraordinarily delicate pastoral and political situation in the diocese when he became bishop. Many of the larger and wealthier parishes were already eager to bolt. Indeed, one soon did. Every word that proceeded out of the bishop's mouth was immediately scrutinized by forces representing all points of view, both within the diocese and beyond. In time, the diocese took action to circumscribe its position with respect to national canons that it, in good faith, believed contrary to TEC's own constitution. These actions were eventually used to pull one of the series of failsafe triggers in the whole ugly sequence of events--the certification of Bishop Lawrence as having "abandoned" the communion of the Episcopal Church. Ironically, the very basis for the certification was in fact an attempt by the Bishop and diocesan leaders to do exactly the opposite, to keep the diocese in TEC while throwing a bone to those who were pressing for departure. If outsiders--and fifth column forces within the diocese--had recognized this for what it was and just let it lie ... again, the watershed event of this past weekend would not have happened.

The complaint against Bishop Lawrence that so egregiously abused the Title IV canons on abandonment was filed by a very small group. I don't know any of them, but I can only speculate that they are of a "progressive" bent and felt themselves marginalized in the overwhelmingly evangelical and conservative climate in the diocese. I cannot begin to imagine what they thought they were accomplishing by starting this avalanche. A reconfigured Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina that is theologically in line with the mainstream of TEC? Seriously? From the standpoint of their own narrow self interest, could they have made a more short-sighted move? Then there's the Disciplinary Board for Bishops, the group that received the complaint and determined that it had merit. Their decision defies any notion of common sense, especially given that the same board, though differently composed, had previously exonerated the Bishop on the same charges, based on the same evidence. Title IV is clear that the routine protections to which we are accustomed in secular criminal proceedings do not apply. But there remains in most of us an intuitive suspicion of anything that smacks of double jeopardy.

Many on the starboard side of North American Anglicanism smell a conspiracy here. They imagine the Presiding Bishop, and her chancellor, as master puppeteers, using groups like those in the diocese who filed the charges, and the key players in the Title IV process, as shills for their overarching nefarious agenda of driving out conservatives and quashing all dissent in TEC. I have resisted such conspiracy theories, and still do, and have said as much to those who propound them. But I have to admit that the timing of events keeps me coming back for another look. Even stipulating that the Presiding Bishop's hands were canonically tied once she received notification of the DBB's finding of abandonment, the seeming lack of public anguish on her part while having to carry out a distasteful duty is jarring. And if, as has been implied, this turn of events caught her by surprise (coming, as it did, between two scheduled meetings between her and Bishop Lawrence and Bishop Waldo of Upper South Carolina to try and reach a creative solution), it is astonishing that coordinated actions between 815 and a "steering committee" of "remainers" within the diocese, even to the point of naming a de facto Provisional Bishop, could have gotten up and running so quickly.

So what should we do now? We should ....

• Resist the temptation to burn bridges. We should inform the Diocese of South Carolina that, just as we did during the Civil War, we are not recognizing their defection. The standard party line from 815 has been "When individuals leave, we mourn but wish them well. When real estate and money leave, we fight to get them back." We need to reverse that, and say, "We don't want your money or your buildings, we want you, and we will fight to get you back. So there will be no depositions and no lawsuits. In the meantime, tell us what we can do to get you to reconsider." In other words, we need to keep a path to reconciliation open. It's what Jesus would do.
• Own our share of the mess. The marriage canons require that, when a previously-married person with a former spouse still living seeks the Bishop's permission to have a new marriage solemnized in the church, that person must give an account of his or her share in the breakdown of the previous relationship. We owe as much to ourselves, to the people of South Carolina, and to God. There is no innocent party in this transaction. "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God." We can't control what anybody in South Carolina says, but we can control what we say, and we need to name our collective complicity in the breakdown of this relationship.
• Minister to those who are left behind by the departure of the diocese. I am given to understand that majorities in somewhere near 20% of the congregations of the diocese do not wish to make the trip out of TEC. Of these, all but a handful are conservative, in theological accord with Bishop Lawrence and the rest of the diocese while in disagreement with recent tactical decisions. Their pastoral needs deserve attention. Perhaps we can enlist the services of bishops in one or more of the neighboring dioceses to take these parishes under their wings as an extraordinary temporary measure. What is clear is that there is not a sufficient residue to justify the pretense of a "continuing" Diocese of South Carolina. Perhaps, with a generous expression of forbearance and humility on our part, and a generous outpouring of divine grace, we can woo the diocese back into the fold. If that happens, these parishes can rejoin their ancestral home. If not, we will need, in time, to redraw diocesan boundaries to take them in and provide for future mission work in the Low Country. But let us forego the charade in which we have indulged in San Joaquin, Fort Worth, and Quincy (Pittsburgh being a signal exception, with a critical mass of "continuers" to provide for continuity and viability). We'll all be happier, and God will be honored. Only the lawyers will be poorer. 

Of course, I don't honestly expect my advice to be taken by those with the power to actually do something creative with the hand we've been dealt. But if we just continue reading our lines from the script, we know the story won't have a happy ending, because a tragic ending is already written into the script! If we want something else, we need to throw the script away and start to improvise. Pray, brothers and sisters. Pray.

A Bridge Not Far Enough

The Presiding Bishop has released a pastoral letter to the people of the Diocese of South Carolina. If one wishes to see an olive branch in her words, I believe there is one there to be seen. The first and last paragraphs tilt in a conciliatory direction ... or at least give it a glance. And Bishop Katharine's writing is usually nothing if not clear, which is a virtue in itself.

Inasmuch as its purpose may have been to reach out to the alienated majority of Episcopalians in the diocese, however, the letter falls sadly short. By invoking the standard narrative that "individuals can leave but dioceses cannot," the PB only raises the level of alienation.

It is a word of law when a word of grace is required. It is a judge's letter when a pastor's letter is required. It is written from a safe place by a leader who, in this hour, needs to be out on a limb, in a risky place. It is a document when what we need is a song. It is prose when poetry is called for.

We're about to go off a cliff. The loss of a diocese as large and vibrant (to say nothing of ancient) as South Carolina--and it is the loss of a diocese, however the institutional fragments are picked up post-apocalypse--is calamitous, and will have repercussions communion-wide and beyond. A friend of mine observed that this is how World War I got started--a series of automatic triggers getting pulled, with no one able to summon the imagination to Just Say No.

We need leaders--both the Presiding Bishop and Bishop Lawrence, along with those who advise and support them--who are willing to go off script (which will probably start with asking all lawyers to leave the room), to behave counterintuitively, to act outside of character. We need a Camp David moment, when Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin were able to do just that (it should be added, at great personal cost). All the problems of the Middle East did not get solved there, as we know, but there have at least been 35 years of peace between Israel and Egypt. Bold and self-emptying generosity on the part of key players in our current mess will not solve all the problems of the Episcopal Church. But even if all we get is 35 years of peace between South Carolina (and those in others dioceses who stand with them theologically) and the majority of the Episcopal Church, it seems worth taking a few risks.

Let me be blunt: If we cannot get this right, we have no business being in ecumenical dialogue with anyone. And we might even question whether we have any business telling the world we have good news to proclaim. It is the gospel itself that is at stake here.