wfn.org | Province Four Synod explores new forms of 'hospitable conversation'

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Province Four Synod explores new forms of 'hospitable conversation'

by E.T. Malone Jr.
     (ENS) Representatives of the 20 southeastern dioceses that comprise
the church's fourth province met at Kanuga Conference Center in early June
to explore new ways to converse across lines of disagreement.
     Under the guidance of consultant Charles Barker, the 29 bishops and
120 newly elected deputies for next summer's General Convention in Denver
sought methods for "hospitable conversations."
     Under the general theme, "Equipping the Saints for a New Day," Barker,
a negotiations specialist and former trial lawyer from Illinois, guided
participants through a series of presentations and demonstrations designed to
help them be better listeners--and more honest debaters.
     He did this by working within the "dividing and uniting" issues framework 
chosen by the province's executive council.
     "When we were planning this meeting, we felt that we might never agree
or change each other's minds, but that we can have conversations," said Scott 
Evans of Durham, North Carolina, the first woman and the first lay person to 
preside at the provincial synod. "There is room in the church for all of us."

Sharing wisdom
     Participants discussed major issues that unite the church, such as worship, 
the baptismal covenant and youth work, and those that divide the church, 
such as human sexuality and biblical authority, creation of a non-geographic
province and racism. And they moved gradually from mock conversations to 
real debates on thorny issues.
     "Our purpose is to improve theological conversations both here and later 
at General Convention by learning to enhance our hospitality and by sharing 
wisdom to help one another discern the truth," Barker explained. 
     He encouraged the group to think of hospitality as a spiritual discipline. 
"Different experiences and views are a kind of wisdom," he said. "Spiritual 
gifts are not always welcome and the giving and receiving of spiritual gifts is 
not always easy."
     He warned his audience to be aware of partisan perceptions and urged 
them to try to achieve a balance of emotion and reason when presenting their 
arguments. And he emphasized the importance of acknowledging the existence, 
presence and opinions of the other party in any conversation.
     Barker observed that people make decisions based on a set of experiences, 
even though they may be incomplete. They seek the company of those with 
whom they feel comfortable and usually do not seek the opinions of those from 
whom they differ. And our decisions are based on partisan perceptions, he said.
     "Thus, we often listen to another not for the purpose of understanding but 
rather to defend ourselves," he noted. He presented a series of steps that begins 
by making room for the other person in a conversation and attempting to 
discover how a neutral observer might view the interaction.
     "If we slip into our partisan point of view, we are not hospitable," Barker 
explained. 

Web of relationships
     Speaking of similarities between quantum physics and faith, Presiding 
Bishop Frank T. Griswold told the synod, "We live in a dynamic process of 
interacting particles. We are being stretched on the glorious being of the Holy 
Ghost. All this creates a certain degree of chaos and unsettlement. This can be 
a prelude to some new understanding or insight. None of this is easy," he said. 
"All is extremely costly."
     And yet it is "part of God's humor. If we knew the cost in advance we would 
never attempt most things we do," he added.
     He continued, "We are bound together in solidarities not of our own choosing. 
We are brought together, not because we all like each other, but because it is 
God's purpose."
     Griswold warned about the great danger of the church "becoming gated 
communities of like-mindedness. We look in judgment at others and begin to 
lob things from one community to another." He asked, "Do we listen to others 
with different points of view? Do we make room for their integrity, their living 
of their life in Christ?"
     Suggesting that "the concept of the autonomous individual is heresy," Griswold 
drew on the fundamental concept in quantum physics that reality exists in a web 
of relationships, that the pieces in a force field of particles shape and mold each 
other.
     "We are sharers in Christ's dying and rising," he said. "At moments we 
experience disillusionment and disorientation. Out of this comes resurrection. 
That is how we are called to live personally and corporately. We wrongly 
assume that improvement and growth are the basic tenets. Congregations and 
churches can go through cycles. It is the grace with which one enters into the 
dying that determines the nature of the rising," he said.
     Observing that his generation has "assumed that there are many more 
absolutes than there actually are," he said that "younger people have lived with 
more diversity and are more open to it. They see things somewhat differently, 
not because they are unprincipled but because they have a greater capacity for 
hospitality."
     Griswold said that we often ask God to confirm what we already believe. 
"If we impose our wills on others, the union is not religious but political and is 
doomed to failure." He concluded, "The real end of graced conversation is not 
simply more understanding but to see Christ more fully in one another. And it is 
that journey of searching to which we all as Christians are called."

Remaining centered
     "What if you really don't want to have a hospitable conversation?" asked 
one honest "partisan."
     Bishop John Howe of Central Florida asked if there are limits to hospitable 
conversation, in view of St. Paul's advice to exhort and convert.
     Others felt that there was far too much "baggage," both on the left and the 
right, from the Lambeth Conference to allow General Convention to be free 
from partisan encounters.
     In a final question-and-answer session with Griswold, he was asked if the 
model of "hospitable conversation" could be attempted at General Convention. 
Amid hearty laughter he answered, "I'm very careful not to interfere with the
House of Deputies." And he added, "Cardinal Newman once said something 
may be right for the life of the church but the moment may be wrong. But we 
should be careful not to use this notion as an excuse for avoidance."
     In response to a comment that the church is "saturated with physical and verbal 
violence, especially at General Convention," Griswold replied, "I'd draw a 
distinction between General Convention and the forces that bear in upon it." 
He said that many "arrive polarized by these forces that act as interpretive 
agents before the event even takes place. We should remain centered and 
ignore the agenda groups beforehand."

--E.T. Malone, Jr., is the communications officer for the Diocese of North 
Carolina and editor of The Communicant.