wfn.org | Episcopal Church PB holds second teleconference

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2000-019

Presiding bishop extends his conversation with the church in 
second teleconference 

by James Solheim

     (ENS) Almost exactly two years after his investiture as the 
25th presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, Frank T. Griswold 
extended his conversation with the church during a second 
teleconference.

     Sitting in the chapel of St. Martin's School in a suburb of 
New Orleans, surrounded by people who were part of a mission 
rally for the Diocese of Louisiana, Griswold invited Bishop 
Charles Jenkins and several diocesan leaders to describe the 
rally and some of their ministries. Jenkins noted how difficult 
it is to change, to move from what he described as "a 
maintenance-oriented culture to a mission-oriented church." After 
a decline over the last 19 years, he said that the diocese has 
set a goal of doubling the number of disciples by the year 2010. 

     Moving into the congregation, Griswold sat down next to 
Margaret Larom of the church's Office of Anglican and Global 
Relations to talk about the church's global mission. "For more 
than 200 years Episcopalians have been spreading the gospel 
throughout the Americas and the whole world," she said. Four of 
the 38 provinces of the Anglican Communion "are the direct result 
of our mission efforts over the centuries."

     She told about a recent trip to the West African country of 
Liberia "where we have a long, long missionary history that we 
can be proud of." She said that the team from the Episcopal 
Church Center saw the results of recent civil war but they also 
went "to see how we can help reconnect and rebuild, especially 
schools." All baptized Episcopalians, she pointed out, are 
members of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society, the 
corporate name of the church adopted by General Convention in 
1935.

Jubilee vision

     In response to a question from the audience in the chapel, 
Griswold described the emerging vision of the church as a Jubilee 
community, moving to the vision that "we are really called to be 
a transformed people, a people of unbounded generosity, a people 
who try to think and live out of the imagination of Christ."

     A question received by fax from a downlink site in New York 
asked how a small parish could witness in a largely Catholic 
area. Griswold said that the parish should examine its life of 
prayer and worship and ask whether people find "a genuine 
atmosphere of hospitality and welcome" when they visit. An e-mail 
question from Houston asked about plans to make church facilities 
more accessible to the disabled. Griswold said that he was 
encouraged by efforts at the congregational level but admitted 
there was still considerable work to do to remove physical 
barriers.

     A telephoned question from Texas raised some questions about 
how the General Convention would deal with controversial 
questions. Griswold said that the reality is that difficult or 
potentially divisive issues can't be put aside or ignored "if 
it's part of the life of the church." But he suggested that 
deputies and bishops should ask what is the best way forward, 
whether a vote or an extended conversation would be most 
appropriate, "not just to be held hostage to the urgencies that 
are introduced from the outside. The body has to act very 
deliberately and very prayerfully," he said. 

     Moving across the chapel, Griswold sat down next to Pamela 
Chinnis, president of the House of Deputies, and the Rev. 
Rosemari Sullivan, executive officer of the General Convention. 

     Sullivan said that the Denver convention would attempt to 
introduce some new elements so that "legislation takes place in 
the context of conversation," beginning with a Jubilee time of 
prayer and reflection. 

     Addressing the issue of tension between the two houses of 
General Convention, Chinnis said that the tension is "more in the 
minds of the people looking at it than in the minds of the two 
persons involved." Using the perceived threat of the Y2K scare at 
the turn of the millennium, she said that the convention is 
"going to be a lot of beautiful fireworks going off that will 
illuminate things rather than splitting the church apart. We've 
been working very hard to make sure that happens," she said.

Crucifixion and resurrection

     Bounding out of his chair, Griswold moved across the chapel 
to sit down next to his wife Phoebe, Bishop Leo Frade of 
Honduras, Sandra Swan, executive director of the Presiding 
Bishop's Fund for World Relief, and Abagail Nelson, a program 
associate for the fund.

     "A year ago we were hanging on the cross," said Frade in 
describing the effects of Hurricane Mitch in Honduras and 
Nicaragua. "We were really crucified in a horrible situation. It 
was in total darkness and desperation. But I can tell you that we 
are now in resurrection," he quickly added. "The Easter of 
resurrection has taken place. The response of the church has been 
tremendous--and the response through the Presiding Bishop's Fund 
has been more than extraordinary. And I really rejoice in that, 
in the reality that we have conquered destruction." The fund is 
helping to build 500 new homes in a village that was destroyed.

     Swan said the Honduras project is a good example of disaster 
relief that turns into rehabilitation and sustainable 
development. Nelson called it "wholistic rehabilitation," not 
just helping to build houses but also community. Phoebe Griswold 
said that the fund was moving into "planting the seeds of 
development in its relief work."

     A man from the audience asked Griswold about a potential 
shortage of clergy. Anticipating many retirements in the near 
future, Griswold said that "a number of dioceses have adopted 
what I would call a recruiting stance toward the ordained 
ministry, instead of simply waiting for someone to come knock on 
the door." He also pointed to the lack of clergy under the age of 
35, although he is encouraged that the age level of last fall's 
entering seminary class has "dropped drastically, and we seem to 
be seeing the fruits of some of this recruitment work that's 
going on around the church."

Recognizing the sin of racism

     Using the celebration of the birth of slain civil rights 
leader Martin Luther King, Jr. to introduce the topic of racism, 
Griswold moved to a chair beside the Rev. Sandra Wilson of 
Minneapolis, president of the Union of Black Episcopalians. "I 
think we have moved from a place in the church of the denial of 
the reality of racism into a recognition of it as sin in our 
midst," she said. Yet that does not remove racism and the church 
will always face fresh challenges, as it does in the decision 
whether to use the Adam's Mark Hotel in Denver. 

     "Part of the challenge to us is that we are not to be 
conformed to this world but transformed by the renewal of our 
minds and spirits--and that, as prayerful people, we recognize 
the need constantly to be engaged in growing ourselves, in 
challenging ourselves, and not being afraid of the conversation." 
She argued that "we do not want to be a mirror of society, rather 
we want to lead society to a new place of justice and mercy."

     Wilson said that the King holiday should remind us, as King 
said in quoting Dante, that the hottest places in hell are 
reserved for those who, in the face of great moral crisis, 
maintain their neutrality. And that injustice anywhere is a 
threat to justice everywhere, that what affects one directly 
affects all of us indirectly. "So the challenge before us as a 
church is to recognize in this time of Jubilee, in this time when 
we are looking at ourselves as transformed people of boundless 
generosity in that spirit of Christ, to recognize that until 
every person is free, none of us is free," she said.

     The teleconference, produced by the church's electronic 
media office, ended with excerpts of a new video which is based 
on an invitation "to come and see our church afresh in some of 
its manifestations, and in a variety of settings," as Griswold 
said in his introduction on the video. "What it really seeks to 
do is give all of us an expanded and enriched sense of what it 
means to be limbs of Christ's risen body, what it means to be 
Episcopalians not simply in our own local community or diocese, 
but Episcopalians broadly across this land in other places," he 
added. 

     And then came a surprise, as Griswold welcomed a Dixieland 
band into the chapel and joined a procession of saints as they 
moved out into the warm sunshine singing, "The Saints Go Marching 
In."

--James Solheim is director of the Episcopal Church's Office of 
News and Information.