Episcopal Press and News
General Convention (II): Issues
Episcopal News Service. April 28, 1988 [88079]
Judy Mathe Foley
NEW YORK (DPS, Apr. 28) -- Every triennial legislative gathering of the Episcopal Church has its familiar Blue Book, in which interim bodies, bishops, deputies, and dioceses report and request legislative action. The 1988 version is nearly 500 pages long, and contains 191 resolutions and numerous reports, including those submitted by several special task forces.
The 1988 Convention will consider a substantial report on congregation-based Christian education, and a proposal to establish common principles for the first time since the national Church gave up its venerable Seabury Series 30 years ago.
To "deepen the vision of the educational context of all congregational life," the Presiding Bishop's Task Force on Christian Education in Congregations recommends leadership training, research, and seminary-based projects to empower effective educational leaders. Proposals also include preparation of computer-based resources, a manual, and videotaped materials to set curriculum norms, identify content unique to Anglicanism, and provide teacher training and planning resources.
New to this Convention are requests to upgrade the Joint Commission on Evangelism and Renewal to a standing commission; to create a new commission on racism; to form a special committee on church funding and information, and task forces on communication planning and the status of women. The Peace Commission also asks the Presiding Bishop and the Executive Council to seek funding of $1.5 million over a six-year period for "a substantial ministry of healing and reconciliation in Central America."
Old is the triennial question of reducing the size of the House of Deputies -- a subject discussed since 1952. This year's recommendation favors a 31 percent reduction of the current maximum number of deputies from 944 to 654 through proportional representation. Should that fail, the Committee on Structure's alternative is a 25 percent reduction, in which dioceses would elect three instead of four deputies each in the lay and clerical orders to achieve a 708-member House. Structure also offers a resolution to reduce the House of Bishops' eligible voting membership by giving resigned and retired bishops seat and voice, but not vote.
And, to round out the rhyme, borrowed liturgies and resources are recommended in several reports.
Women's roles in the Church are reflected in both liturgical and constitutional recommendations. The Standing Liturgical Commission reports on its two-year experience with inclusive language, and in a small booklet offers for trial use Supplemental Liturgical Texts, which "venture to create additions...rather than concentrating on corrections to existing liturgical texts."
Convention will be asked to ensure inclusive language in its own Constitution by adopting the first reading of nine constitutional amendments that delete the masculine pronoun "he" and "his" when referring to bishops and priests, and to change the word "clergymen" to "members of the clergy."
In its report, the Committee for the Full Participation of Women in the Church offers recommendations to develop statistics on women's participation and an educational process to help the Church become "more sensitive to the way in which language and images often perpetuate stereotypes."
Though several aspects of human sexuality -- particularly homosexuality -- have been subjects of wide, and sometimes heated, church debate during the last triennium, the Commission on Human Affairs and Health, which has been studying these subjects, offers no ground-breaking legislation. The Commission's report to Convention, however, will likely spark heated debate.
Though Commission members "plead with church leaders to create an environment in our common life" in which debate on homosexuality may continue with "integrity and rationality," Commission chairman George Hunt, Bishop of Rhode Island, says members decided that resolutions "would not add anything positive to the debate." They offer two actions: to decry violence against homosexual persons and to commend those homosexuals and others who care for AIDS victims.
The Commission, which affirms marriage "as the standard, the norm, the primary relationship in which the gift of human sexuality is to be shared," offers reports and statistics on AIDS, bioethical issues, and abortion, and a five-point set of guidelines for "the termination of pregnancy in the light of our understanding of the sacredness of human life." In substance these guidelines follow previous Convention resolutions. They include the statement, "all human life is sacred," affirm the "moral option" for abortion, as well as the responsibility to practice family planning; and though acknowledging "abortion's tragic dimension," say any proposed legislation prohibiting abortion would not address the root causes of the problem and should not abridge individual conscience.
In other areas of concern, Episcopalians may add some new observances to their church calendar in the coming year. Eight new saints (approved in 1985) will be added to the Calendar of the Church Year, and propers for six more -- five of them women -- are offered for trial use. The Church might observe the millennium anniversary of Russian Orthodoxy on Sept. 25, the Feast of St. Sergius; designate 1989 as a Year of Prayer, the 1990s as a decade of evangelism, and St. Andrewstide as an annual mission awareness season.
In liturgical actions, Convention could recommend seven principles to implement the catechumenate in rites entitled Preparing Adults for Holy Baptism: The Catechumenate, and it could adopt rites for preparation of baptized persons for reaffirmation of the Baptismal Covenant, and for The Preparation of Parents and Godparents for the Baptism of Infants and Young Children.
Total ministry is the subject of the Blue Book's longest report. The Council for the Development of Ministry offers canonical changes for what has variously been dubbed Canon 8, or indigenous, or community situations. Now adopting the phrase, "local priests and deacons," the Council makes provision for those who serve in "distinctive situations" -- usually rural and geographically widespread jurisdictions -- where a "deprivation of sacramental and pastoral ministry" exists. Its 17 resolutions address lay ministers, licensed lay persons and certified church workers, and clarify the process for entering Holy Orders. A new canon on the dissolution of pastoral relationships "attempts to clarify a breakdown in interpersonal relationships rather than serious crimes and offenses" addressed in disciplinary canons.
Historically the Episcopal Church has been active ecumenically, and this year's Standing Commission on Ecumenical Relations (SCER) reports on ecumenical conversations with Roman Catholics; Lutherans; the Old Catholic Churches, with whom the Anglican Church is in communion; the nine-member Consultation on Church Union (COCU); both the National Council of Churches of Christ (NCCC) and the World Council of Churches (WCC).
SCER asks study of the Anglican/Roman Catholic agreed statement on Salvation and the Church and on the Lutheran document Implications of the Gospel. In the six years of conversation with the Lutherans, three bodies merged into the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and SCER says the Gospel document is a step toward full communion. On the other hand, SCER finds that COCU documents do not contain "sufficient theological basis" for unification, but it does recommend continued participation to "seek fresh approaches toward visible unity."
The SCER submits its report on ways to develop strong and more accountable relationships with NCCC and WCC, and adds Executive Council advice and consent to the Presiding Bishop's appointment of Episcopal representations to both bodies.
In other actions, Convention will be asked to:
- Affirm the tithe as the minimum standard of giving for Episcopalians;
- Support translation of the canons into Spanish and administration of the General Ordination Examination "in a candidate's language of preference";
- Amend the canons to allow use of The New Jerusalem Bible;
- Ask dioceses to support the Companion Diocese Program and Partners in Mission, and name ecumenical officers to the Diocesan Ecumenical Officers network;
- Ask the Church Center to produce an age and sex profile with demographic information on church membership;
- Adopt guidelines to interpret canons that govern formation, preparation, theological education, and continuing education of clergy;
- Train clergy for the special needs of working-class congregations;
- Grant a three-year subsidy to The Episcopalian;
- Study the process of selection, orientation, evaluation, continuing education, and transition of bishops as leaders; and
- Ask Episcopalians to work to change government policies which prevent the growth of individuals in freedom and dignity and inhibit the development of community life and the common good," to work ecumenically to study public education, recognizing it as "a fundamental key to enlarge and maintain a multi-cultural community".