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Cathedral Church
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Wilmington
Delaware
19802

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Dean’s Letter to the Parish

September, 2009
Episcopal Cathedral Church
of Saint John
Wilmington, Delaware

Some Thoughts on General Convention

by William B. Lane

For years the late Walter Cronkite would end his evening news cast by saying, “And that’s the way it is.” Meaning, I think, that he had just reported about the reality of the world in which his audience lived.

The 2009 General Convention of the Episcopal Church was gaveled to a close on the 17th of July. We at Saint John’s were fortunate in hearing a first hand report from the Convention by our own Debbie Layton and Cecily Sawyer-Harmon who were two of the four lay Deputies from Delaware. We also heard from Helen Whitson who attended the Women’s Triennial. Helen has been a leader in the Triennial for many years.

It appears to me that this Convention may well be remembered as the - that’s the way it is Convention. Without apology and recognizing potential consequences, the Deputies and Bishops in Convention said that in the Episcopal Church the dignity of every human being is to be honored and respected without qualification. The particular focus of this affirmation on human dignity was the full incorporation of the gay and lesbian members of the Church in its life and ministry.

Two resolutions affirmed this full incorporation: one recognizing the right of a diocese to elect a bishop without consideration of the candidate’s sexual orientation; the other recognizing the prerogative of a diocesan bishop to exercise his/her pastoral ministry to provide for the celebration and blessing of same gender unions. As he prepared to cast his vote on the Resolution pertaining to same gender unions (Resolution 056), one of the Deputies, the Reverend Ian Douglas from Massachusetts, made a statement that I believe speaks for many of us. He said that:

He would not join with those who would force the Episcopal Church to pick between faithfulness and the Anglican Communion. "We cannot pretend that concurring with C056 will not cause turmoil. Concurrence with this resolution, I suspect, will be used by groups like the Anglican Church in North America in attempts to marginalize us in the councils of the Anglican Communion and enfranchise them as the genuine expression of American Anglicanism. Yet I will concur with C056 not because it is a justice agenda but because by doing so our church is being faithful to God in Jesus Christ and the leading of the Holy Spirit."

That’s the way it is as the Episcopal Church in the United States of America seeks to be faithful to the Gospel of Christ; not imposing its discernment of faithfulness on other national Churches in the Anglican Communion, but looking to those Churches to respect what it has discerned for itself. The Episcopal Church should not get drawn into debate over its position. Having made that clear, the Episcopal Church can focus on other areas in the human drama that it has identified as needing to be transformed by the presence of God’s living and redeeming love.

As the Gospel According to John comes to a close, the evangelist tells us that Jesus commissions Simon Son of John to feed my lambs; tend my sheep; feed my sheep. And if Simon is so commissioned, might not the Church be as well? If our answer is yes to this, then we know the way the Church must go — the way of Christ; and we know what the Church is meant to be — Christ’s blessing for all of God’s creation.

Faithfully,
The Very Reverend William B. Lane

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