Episcopal Urban Caucus Promotes an Incomplete, Imbalanced Reconciliation

on April 13, 2007

Ralph Webb

Note: This is a longer version of an article printed in the Spring 2007 Anglican Action Briefing.

 

The Episcopal Urban Caucus held its annual assembly February 7-10 in Raleigh, NC. The caucus, according to its website, desires “to hold the feet of the Episcopal Church to the fire of social justice … [and] promote the progressive agenda of the [Episcopal] Church.”

This year’s assembly focused on racial reconciliation. Compared with previous assemblies, it apparently was less radical. (To cite just one example, there were no workshops with titles like “Why Pocahontas Scalped Barbie,” as at last year’s assembly.)

Nevertheless, the caucus’ role as a rallying point for the Episcopal left was still evident. Human efforts to heal certain social conflicts and the world in general formed the basis for the reconciling efforts espoused by the caucus. God’s initiative to reconcile humanity to himself through Jesus Christ received little attention. And while the current acute divisions in the Episcopal Church and the larger Anglican Communion were not a major focus of this assembly, the caucus advocated some positions that would exacerbate the divisions.

Racial Reconciliation
The Rev. Nelson Johnson, Executive Director of the Beloved Community Center of Greensboro, NC, centered his keynote address on the “Greensboro massacre” of November 3, 1979. This violent incident pitted Ku Klux Klan members and Nazi supporters on the one hand, and anti-Klan marchers on the other hand.

The march was sponsored by the Communist Workers Party (CWP), and Johnson was one of its chief organizers. The Klan members and Nazis drove into an African-American housing project and began hurling racial epithets. Harsh words quickly were supplanted by a gun battle that lasted 88 seconds. Five people connected with the march died and 10 were wounded. The neighborhood was damaged heavily.


Matthew 25 vs. Matthew 28?
The “reign of God” of which Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori speaks clearly derives from a progressive social justice vision. At the assembly, she twice expressed the church’s mission in terms of Matthew 25, with its parable of God judging humans according to their acts of mercy toward “the least of these.” The MDGs, in her eyes, will help the Episcopal Church fulfill that mission. Bishop Jefferts Schori recognized that orthodox Anglicans look more often to the Great Commission of Matthew 28, with Jesus’ commands to baptize and make disciples, as a summary of the church’s mission. She proclaimed to the caucus: “Both [Matthew 25 and Matthew 28] are about loving our neighbor and one cannot divorce one from the other. I don’t believe God has any patience with arguments over which is more important—evangelism or social justice.” Many orthodox Anglicans could agree with her.

But while these concerns are commendable, they also mask a one-sidedness in the Episcopal Church’s self-understanding. Bishop Jefferts Schori advocates a “deed-based evangelism” that emphasizes church-based solutions to social ills at both local and systemic levels. Consequently, discussions of the Episcopal Church’s mission invariably center on reconciling human beings to each other through progressive political and social means. The apostle Paul’s focus on reconciliation between Jews and Gentiles into one body, the church, morphs into reconciliation between all people into a world of peace and justice.

Lost in the shuffle is the biblical sense of human beings’ separation from God—and their corresponding need to be reconciled through repentance and faith in the work of Jesus Christ. Bishop Jefferts Schori said in the past that this view of the church’s mission is comparatively less “generous” than the progressive one. So while she verbally upholds the importance of both senses of mission, in practice, Matthew 25 gets center stage and Matthew 28 largely is kept waiting in the wings behind the curtain.

According to Johnson, the massacre created wounds among city residents that have never healed. His own wounds healed only when he forgave the Klan members. Since then, he has been involved with reconciliation efforts modeled after those employed in post-apartheid South Africa. He urged caucus members to “live out the kingdom of God in the days that you have!”

A panel discussion followed Johnson’s speech. Jill Williams of the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission claimed that there were differing reactions to the “Greensboro massacre” along racial lines. White citizens, Williams said, saw the shootings as an aberration, while blacks saw them as part of a continuing pattern of racism. More than one member of the panel asserted that many African Americans were scared to speak of the incident, partially because they were afraid of being labeled as communist.

This emphasis on racial reconciliation continued throughout the assembly. Many of the workshops looked at local efforts on behalf of black Episcopalians or otherwise related to racial issues.

Millennium Development Goals
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori addressed the caucus with a speech devoted largely to the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The Episcopal Church’s purpose, Bishop Jefferts Schori said, can be summarized in two phrases: “to reconcile the world to God and each other in Christ” (from the catechism) and “building the reign of God.”

The Episcopal Church’s current means to “a restored world reconciled to God,” the MDGs, “have caught the imagination of this church in ways that are really startling,” Bishop Jefferts Schori opined. She advocated praying for an end to “systems of injustice” and using God-given talents toward that goal. She also recommended that individual Episcopalians, parishes, dioceses, the national church, and governments give more than the recommended 0.7 percent of income to achieve the MDGs.

The presiding bishop, however, also warned that the MDGs will not eradicate the inequalities that they address. Consequently, she urged Episcopalians not to see the MDGs as ends in themselves and to plan on tackling the larger issues over the long haul.

Bishop Jefferts Schori praised the U.S. government for its generosity in funding the MDGs. But elsewhere in her remarks she was less approving. “The more I learn about the history of our government in relationships with other countries, the more my shame deepens,” she said. She criticized the United States for a tendency to “meddle in other governments.” And she proclaimed an apparently pacifist message: “[i]t is long past time to beat our swords into plowshares [and] to lay down our weapons of mass destruction.”

A later workshop on the MDGs featured two representatives from a local AIDS organization. They insisted that sex and drugs had to be discussed in the church, even overseas where such conversations were more difficult. The AIDS activists semi-facetiously lamented that it wasn’t as easy as passing out contraceptives in the collection plate.

Gay and Lesbian “Inclusion”
The “full inclusion” of gays and lesbians—a phrase used by many Episcopal progressives to support same-sex blessings and the ordination of non-celibate homosexuals—was not a major focus of this year’s assembly. Nevertheless, it became a passionate topic twice, as the caucus opposed resolution B033 from the Episcopal Church’s last General Convention.


“The more I learn about the history of our government in relationships with other countries, the more my shame deepens,” said Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts-Schori. (Photo Courtesy ENS / Sonja Bennett)

Resolution B033 asked bishops and diocesan standing committees to “exercise restraint by not consenting to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion.” The particular “manner of life” that currently “presents a challenge” is understood to be homosexual relations. The resolution was widely seen as an attempt at rapprochement with the majority of the Anglican Communion, which had reacted negatively to the consecration of the openly gay Gene Robinson. (Orthodox Anglicans and others viewed it as an inadequate resolution that nowhere came near the goals of the Anglican Communion as expressed in the 2004 Windsor Report.)

During a question-and-answer session following Bishop Jefferts Schori’s speech, the Rev. Michael Hopkins (the past president of Integrity, an Episcopal gay and lesbian advocacy group) asked Bishop Jefferts Schori how the church can move beyond B033. She responded initially on a personal level: “I empathize. I continue to be as troubled by [B033] as many others are. We live in a fallen world.”

Apparently foreseeing the greater “inclusion” of gays and lesbians, she continued, “The blessings of the political process are that it never speaks forever .… I think this church is much closer to where we are than even [at last summer’s General Convention] …. When we come to the next General Convention, we will be even clearer.” This statement brought applause from the audience in the plenary session.

And the caucus was determined to ensure that resolution B033 would “never [speak] forever.” During its annual business meeting, caucus members presented several reasons for opposing B033:

  • It is “dangerous” because it will remain in effect unless repealed by a future General Convention.
  • It is “an [improper] attempt to modify the [Episcopal Church’s] constitution.”
  • It is too vague in its phrasing concerning a “manner of life.”

The caucus passed a resolution that asks bishops and standing committees not to consider a person’s sexual orientation when consenting to the election of bishops. The same resolution also instructs the caucus to focus on ways to repeal B033 during next year’s assembly.

So while the caucus this year prioritized reconciliation across the persistent racial divides in U.S. society, it prioritized for next year the “full inclusion” of gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered persons in the church. In this goal, it aims to halt the Episcopal Church’s at best indecisive, occasional baby steps toward the Anglican Communion. The reconciliation promoted by the caucus, then, ultimately is incomplete and imbalanced.

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