General Crazy

There was no morning legislative session today. Instead, we started learning something called Public Narrative. The general idea is that we all will learn a method to tell stories intended to engage the listener in our personal commitments to mission. For the first time around I thought it went pretty well. All the tables have coaches; ours is The Rev. Bonnie Perry of the Diocese of Chicago. Love her!

At lunch I attended another First-time Deputy forum. This one was on the denomination-wide health care plan. Some of the questions were things we’ve heard before: what about dioceses in which health care costs may increase under the new plan, and what about dioceses that will see decreases in services or coverage under the new plan. These are real problems, and I don’t know how or if they will be fully resolved. I think the more vexing challenge is how Church Pension Group is going to find coverage in non-domestic dioceses and in those parts of the U.S. where the seven major insurance providers are not present. Also, I’m personally concerned about the possibility of church employers coercing their employees to “opt out” of coverage whenever possible as a means to manage costs. We’re doing this to help save money, yes, but we’re also doing it to expand heath care coverage to more of our employees. We’re a church, after all; we should be about caring for folks before we’re about the bottom line.

In the House of Deputies afternoon legislative session we tried to elect 12 seats on the CPF board of trustees. I say “tried”, because the electronic voting machines were not working. We ended up passing a motion to reschedule the vote to another time. We then re-elected Bonnie Anderson to another term as President of the House of Deputies (yay Bonnie!). We then moved into special session to discuss B033.

B033 was the resolution passed in the very last minutes of the previous General Convention (2006), whereby the Convention agreed to moratoria on elevating persons in same-sex relationships to the episcopate and from approving rites of blessing for same relationships. The chair of the World Mission Committee read a history of the issue, and then we were advised to find another deputy whom we didn’t know and discuss three questions (paraphrased, because I can’t remember the exact wording):

1. What is my story about B033?

2. What is the church’s story about B033?

3. Where is God calling us now?

I met a really lovely man from a diocese in the south. I won’t mention which one so that I can say more about what he told me. He mentioned he has a gay brother who has been in a relationship for 11 years. They have three daughters; Mr. Deputy is godfather to one of them. In a very unassuming way he made it quite clear to me that he felt strongly that it is time for the church to make a new statement about its position on the issues germane to B033, to the effect that we will not continue the moratoria.

The House will have further discussions tomorrow morning. I understand that the House of Bishops was asked by one of its membership to consider requesting an invitation to the House of Deputies as silent observers for that discussion. I understand also that the measure was defeated. Bishop Gene Robinson has expressed some dismay on his blog at his perception that some of the bishops are feeling a rather inflated sense of their own importance and function in the church.

It fits in well with some of the developments on the Anglican stage, particularly when Anglican bishops asked our House of Bishops for a further assurance (post B033) that they would not consent to any more gay bishops. It continues to be obvious that The Episcopal Church’s inclusion of priests, deacons, and lay people in the highest level of its governance is simply not understood or accepted by other provinces in the Communion. As much as I may be open to arguments that TEC’s “innovations” fly in the face of the precepts of catholicity, I will not abide other provinces’ refusal to accept our polity. It particularly describes Ubuntu, and I think it is a gift to the Communion.