Episcopal General Convention Begins This Week

on June 23, 2015

The Episcopal Church’s General Convention is fast approaching. Later this week I’ll travel to Salt Lake City, where I will cover the full duration of the triennial convention over nine days as credentialed media. You’ll be able to read all of my coverage here on IRD’s blog, Juicy Ecumenism, or by visiting www.TheIRD.org/anglican.

In addition to the election of a new presiding bishop to replace Katharine Jefferts Schori, General Convention will consider proposals to change the definition of marriage in the Church’s doctrine, discipline and worship. There are four separate liturgies under consideration, including one that would borrow from the 1928 prayer book marriage service declaring same-sex unions “an honorable estate, signifying unto us the mystical union that is betwixt Christ and his Church.”

Deputies will also consider resolutions with public policy ramifications: Anti-Israel activists from three dioceses have introduced legislation calling for the church to divest itself of financial holdings in companies that do business with Israel. These proposals have fared poorly at past General Conventions, but activists are attempting to leverage their recent success in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in order to gain traction in the Episcopal Church.

General Convention is also a time when officials from Episcopal Church seminaries meet with alumni and prospective students. General Theological Seminary in New York continues to undergo significant turmoil after a rough academic year, and Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts recently welcomed both a new interim Dean and Board Chair after the controversial former Dean departed. Ten seminaries is probably too many to serve a denomination that is about half the size it was in the mid-1960s, and we can expect several struggling institutions to merge and sell off property in the coming decade.

These are difficult times for the Episcopal Church and for the worldwide Anglican Communion. Anglicans outside of the Episcopal Church cannot retreat from the battles in the U.S. church. As Sydney Archbishop Emeritus and GAFCON Secretary General Peter Jensen has warned, there is no safe place untouched by the strong winds of cultural change.

Please look for my reports online June 25-July 3. As always, I welcome your comments below or via email at jwalton@TheIRD.org. Please pray for good judgment and fidelity to the Word of God by deputies and bishops, as well as for me to be sustained by the Holy Spirit during a spiritually dry time at General Convention.

  1. Comment by Preston Mitchell on June 23, 2015 at 11:24 am

    Well I thought just might be an impartial reporting until the last sentence. We pray and believe that the convention will be saturated rather than dry with the holy spurit

  2. Comment by truelinguist on June 23, 2015 at 11:31 am

    No, the convention is all wet.

  3. Comment by Jeff Walton on June 23, 2015 at 4:39 pm

    That would be my hope as well, but having attended two previous General Conventions (’09 ’12) there is a weariness to them — although not always: I was delighted to attend a wonderful Sudanese worship service at the General Convention in Indianapolis that was vibrant.

  4. Comment by DD on June 23, 2015 at 8:52 pm

    A woman in our church, active in the pro-life movement, passed on an interesting bit of information: most of the “escorts” for women walking into our local abortion mill are Episcopal priests. She says most of the escorts are clergy, one for sure is Unitarian, but, as she put it, Episcopal priests seem to regard assisting women to murder their own children consider it part of their “ministry.” Aside from the fact that that is just plain evil, IMO, it tells me these are clergy with way too much time on their hands. When God called you (if indeed he did) to the ministry, did you really anticipate that lending women your arm as they walk into a murder facility would be fulfilling your divine calling?

    One of their seminary presidents has boasted about her label “high priestess of abortion.”

  5. Comment by Namyriah on June 24, 2015 at 10:11 pm

    The best comedy is unintentional. Many solemn pronouncements will be made at the convention. Not one of them will address the Big Issue: What will stop us from shrinking?

  6. Comment by Bob Brooke on June 26, 2015 at 10:53 am

    What difference does this convention make? Using the guise of a church of God, they meet as apostates. They are fashioning their own world and asking God to bless it. They are the blind leading the blind …

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