From the Rector
Dear Friends in Christ,
This summer, the General Convention of the Episcopal Church will occur. It meets every three years to take up a range of work from considering liturgical changes to formalizing our relationships with other churches and denominations.
General Convention is comprised of deputies elected from each diocese, as well as a House of Bishops. Those elected deputies are both lay and ordained.
A rough analogy might be between the Senate and the House of Representatives. The House of Bishops often functions like the Senate in that it is less responsive to the pressures of the day and less likely to make quick or radical change. For legislation to pass it must pass both the House of Bishops and the House of Deputies.
When it meets, General Convention is the second largest elected legislative body in the world! Only India’s parliament is larger.
It relates to the Presiding Bishop in roughly the way Congress relates to the President. However, the Presiding Bishop serves as a convener of the House of Bishops and cannot veto legislation or the like. He serves as the chief executive of the administrative arm of the Church which is housed at 815 Second Avenue in Manhattan.
In most Anglican churches, like England or Nigeria, the equivalent role to our Presiding Bishop is an Archbishop. For example, Justin Welby currently serves as the Archbishop of Canterbury and is the titular head of the worldwide Anglican Communion serving at the pleasure of the Crown (which is titled the Supreme Head of the Church of England.)
Different Episcopal and Anglican churches around the world comprise the Anglican Communion but largely direct their own affairs and relate through fraternal bonds as a Communion but do not make decisions that are binding on one another. However, their decisions often have ripple effects that impact one another in significant ways.
For example, the Episcopal Church’s acceptance of the election of Gene Robinson as our first openly gay bishop had significant ramifications for our relationship with other Anglican churches. Many of them passed more stringent requirements or advocated for laws that were much harsher regarding homosexuality than before.
Most Anglican churches now have women serving at various levels of leadership in part because of the ordination of women in other Anglican churches. The gift of our relationship is that we function as both anchor and sail for one another. We help restrain departures from an orthodox, inherited faith while also leaving room for the Holy Spirit to move and speak in new ways within each church and culture.
Many would have the Church move more quickly on one thing or another. Some would have it never move at all. The gift of our systems is that no one is happy!
But that really is a gift. Life together is about both shaping but also being shaped by the wider community. The Church is not a Body that works only in the present time. It is in dialogue and deep relationship with those who have come before and with those who have not yet found Christ or the Church.
We are stewards of mystery—not its masters.
The somewhat Byzantine structure of our Church is designed to respond to the day but do so from the riches of tradition.
It is designed to honor the leadership gifts of laypeople and clergy alike.
It is designed to both connect us to the wider Church but also respect the local differences and developments that mark the life of each member of the Anglican Communion.
We are bound together by both the holy mysteries of the Sacraments and the even more mysterious bureaucracy of the Church alike!
In all of this we continue to try to find a way not toward compromise but toward comprehension. We gather as many voices as possible hoping for Pentecost moments in a world of Babel.
May we continue to listen to one another and to the Spirit as we seek to serve Christ faithfully for all time and in our own day.
Yours in Christ,
—Fr Robert