Walt Cheatham’s Summary of General Convention
Other Accounts: Bishop Wright | Rev. Harris | Rev. Hinton | Rev. Waid | Deborah Layton | Judi Gregory | Cecily Sawyer-Harmon
On Sunday July 5, about 5 PM, LaVerne and I arrived at the Anaheim Hilton where we would stay for the next 13 days. The Hilton is on Convention Way in Anaheim. Convention Way ends at the Anaheim Convention Center, a huge glass encased building. The Convention Center is where our Convention was to be held.
July 6th and 7th were about getting registered, familiarizing myself with what I would be doing and where I would be doing it.
Eucharist was held every day. In the opening Eucharist, Presiding Bishop Shori gave the sermon. She is a powerful speaker. She has this soft voice that makes it clear what she is speaking about and her emotional feelings about it. The point of her sermon was that we should reject “business as usual” and also concentrate on “caring for the most vulnerable”.
July 8th was the big day, the first day, the beginning of the legislative sessions. The daily calendars were full. A typical day could begin with meetings starting a 7 AM and ending after 9 PM.
The most important meetings to me were the legislative meetings which were held twice a day, generally lasting 6 hours and 45 minutes. Equally important to me were the daily Community Eucharist which lasted an hour and 15 minutes. The Eucharistic services had programs which were printed in English and Spanish and often music had Spanish and African songs. Parts of these services also were read in Spanish which added a different perspective to the Service. The closing Eucharist on July 17th was done in French and Bishop Schori seemed to speak it as well as she spoke Spanish.
Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury visited us and spoke at an evening forum attended by more than 2000 people. He said that the world economy is in a “crisis of truthfulness” He pointed out that we were about profit without risk. He didn’t limit “we” to the banks, insurance companies and investment companies, “we” is all of us.
The theme of this Convention was Ubuntu “I in you and you in me”. Ubuntu (pronounced O bun tu) is an African way of seeing the world – and the people in it – as an intricate web of relationships. The word Ubuntu comes from a linguistic group of Sub-Saharan languages known as Bantu. The book which inspired the Conventional theme was written by the Rev. Michael Battle, who describes Ubuntu as an African way in which the identity of self is understood to be formed interdependently through community. He also points out that this is a difficult worldview for many Westerners who tend to understand self as over and against others – or as in competition with others.
To prepare us for the Legislative Sessions, about two weeks before the Convention we were sent an 807-page book called “The Blue Book”. This one that I have here is Burgundy (I think). We were told that the history of the Blue Book is that the first ones were blue and convention planners got complaints, because it was difficult to differentiate between which books went with which conventions.
There are about 200 resolutions in this Blue Book. When I first got it, in a typical Walt way, to have read all of the resolutions, I said that I would attempt to do about 15 to 20 a day and the first day I did 30. The second day I found that I couldn’t tell you what 25 of those 30 resolutions were about. Plan “B” was to go back and write yes, no or I need more info beside each resolution and I did 105 of the 200. I realized later that this wasn’t much better. I also found out when I started attending the Legislative Sessions that it really didn’t matter what I had done previously because each day we were given new info about the resolutions and discussed them before acting on them.
Before I talk about some of these resolutions there is something that is important for us to remember. The Episcopal Church during the period of the Revolutionary War separated itself from the Church of England because it did not want to recognize an English monarch as the head of the Church. The Church also patterned itself administratively after the Congressional structure that was being adopted by the Colonies. The house of Deputies was to be made up of lay and clerical Deputies and I feel that this group resembles our US Congress. The House of Bishops is of course made up of Bishops and this house resembles the US Senate. The reason that I want to remind you of this is that today the Episcopal Church considers itself a part of the Anglican Communion whose leader is the Archbishop of Canterbury. Relationships with the Church of England and other Anglican churches around the world over time were repaired.
However, there were always issues between the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. The 75th Convention created other issues between the Episcopal Church and the rest of the Anglican Communion. These issues were not alone in the tension between the Church and the rest of the Anglican Communion. Presiding Bishop noted that “ the conservatives in our church – those people have been jarred by 35 years of constant change, from the ordination of women , through inclusion of children to revisions in our prayer book – are fueling the outrage of some African Bishops over the open acceptance of gays and lesbians. So the elephant in the room was the after effects of the ordination of an openly gay Bishop, Gene Robinson and a resolution was adopted at the 75th Convention to deal with the issues it would create with the rest of the Anglican Communion. The resolution simply said that until the 76th Convention, no openly gay person would be ordained Bishop by the Episcopal Church.
One thing I had really prepared myself for was moving past the issue of people who openly live alternative life styles being a part of our Church. As a member of SsAM it is clear to me that our intent as a congregation is to be inclusive and welcome everyone, without any restrictions. Our sign out front says welcome. It is also clear to me as a member of our Search Committee that we have put no such restrictions about sexual preferences in our search. To me it was definitely time to move past this resolution and this issue.
But! In my zeal to deal with the elephant, I had subconsciously assigned in my mind less importance of other significant resolutions. Some of these resolutions stood out and reminded me that we face problems other than sexual orientation. Some examples:
- World poverty.
- Judicious use of military action.
- Restricting the use of bottled water and water conservation.
- Establishing new congregations.
- Resolutions that address HIV/AIDS and other global health issues.
- The general Church budget
So where did we end up? We got pass the elephant. Gay and lesbian people may be called to ordination at all levels. With same gender marriage, civil unions and domestic partnerships being legal or about to become legal in some states, the church will collect and develop resources for blessing same gender couples. How about the other stuff? The Church supports improvement of all issues where improvement is needed. The main issue really seems to be how much we can afford to support. With lower giving’s, our budget for the next triennium was reduced and some things can’t and will not be funded and others will not be funded to the extent requested.
And me, I learned a lot about my Church. When I ran for deputyship at Diocesan Convention I noted that I wanted to be a part of working to help a Church that works hard to get “it” right. I further noted that the problem was that “it” in today’s world changes rapidly and the best efforts at responding are often not able to keep up. But my Church tries and it tries hard and I’m proud of that.
When I left to come home from Anaheim I felt enlightened, wiser about the operations of my Church, emotionally drained but joyous and ready to be in my house.
One other thing, the Presiding Bishop has asked that we not refer to our Church as the “National Church” Our church is global with representation from Europe, Africa, Asia and South America, there was a strong presence from people from all over the world. We really are global.
Click here to read the Official Summary of General Convention Actions.