This past week I saw first-hand how some traditionalist activists in the Diocese of Texas, including many long-time friends in my own big parish, St. John the Divine Houston, are mobilizing under the radar to elect a bishop who will almost certainly lead the diocese out of the Episcopal Church. After yesterday’s events, I see this as pretty much a foregone conclusion.
Many of these activists are fine people who care deeply about the Gospel — but they also care way too much about the Current Disputes, and they’re organizing pretty effectively to capture the levers of control in the diocese. I hope I’m wrong, but I think it won’t be long before the Diocese of Texas goes the way of Pittsburgh, Fort Worth, and the like, and that it will eventually leave the Episcopal Church.
[UPDATE: So there’s no confusion about the previous sentence, neither Pittsburgh nor Fort Worth (dioceses) have left the Episcopal Church — at least not yet. From my perspective, though, that’s just a matter of time; neither diocese’s leadership seems to be willing to be associated with the so-called heretics and apostates who, they think, dominate TEC, and I think the next bishop and diocesan council of Texas will be of like mind.]
The diocesan "visioning process"
I come to this conclusion after participating in one of the diocese’s focus groups to develop a "vision statement" for the diocese. This is a prelude to electing a new bishop when +Don Wimberly (convener of the so-called "Camp Allen Windsor bishops") has to retire in a few years. The Houston visioning event was held yesterday at Christ Church cathedral.
How I heard about the Houston "visioning" event
The visioning event got almost no publicity in our parish. The weekly newsletter mentioned that these events were going on around the diocese, but didn’t say where or when. I heard about the specific date and time only fortuitously. One of our parish’s senior priests sent an email around to the Vestry and Associate Vestry ("AV"; in essence, the usher captains). I was copied on the email, but I can’t tell whether that was an intentional courtesy, which would have been in character for this priest, or just a goof-up (he might well have started it out by doing a reply-to-all to a blood-drive email and not noticed my name on the list).
The priest’s email said (emphasis mine):
The “vision” that comes out of this conference will be important when it comes to selecting a new bishop to replace Bishop Don Wimberly when he retires (not that he is planning to retire right away, but WHEN he does). It is vital that voices that represent views similar to those held by SJD be present at this meeting and included in the visioning process.
We are trying to have a good representation of leadership from SJD and consider the AV as part of the key leaders of our parish. At each or our AV meetings I have been trying to bring you up to date on the national issues facing our Church and the response from our Bishop. This will be an important opportunity for you to join your clergy and vestry and let your voice be heard in the forming of the future of our diocese.
A cynic might say that our highly-orthodox clergy went out of their way not to publicize the date and place of the Houston visioning event, while making sure the "right" people were encouraged to attend. Knowing these folks, though, I don’t think they’d do that.
The traditionalists’ (confidential) "pre-meeting"
Good politics requires good preparation, and this past Tuesday night, a select group of traditionalists met at St. Martin’s, one of the biggest parishes in the Episcopal Church, to plan their strategy for the upcoming Saturday focus group. The rector of St. Martin’s, Larry Gipson, circulated an agenda, via an email entitled "CONFIDENTIAL FROM LARRY GIPSON."
(Apparently not everyone took the "confidential" part seriously: I know for a fact that I wasn’t the only one who was forwarded a copy.)
Fr. Gipson’s confidential email said:
My thought is that we could best spend our time on the last item by identifying the 5 most important things we think our diocese should be doing in the future. If we do identity these things in our meeting, then everyone will be aware of them and they can make sure that they vote for them as a priority at the meeting on Saturday.
(Emphasis added.) Fr. Gipson’s agenda included six suggested "vision statements" to bring up at the focus group. Four out of the six statements amounted to code for leaving the Episcopal Church in due time:
WHAT DO WE THINK ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT ITEMS THAT THE DIOCESE SHOULD BE FOCUSSED ON AND DOING IN THE COMING YEARS?
Examples of Suggestions:
• Increase our continuing focus on the “Great Commission” by bringing “X” number of new members into a saving relationship with God in Christ in our Diocese in the next “X” years..
• Found “X” new parishes in the Diocese in the next “X” years.
• Maintain unimpaired communion, through the Bishop of our Diocese, with the Archbishop of Canterbury and the rest of the Anglican Communion. [Emphasis mine – DCT]
• Elect a new Bishop who will be able, because of his/her adherence to the teachings of the Anglican Communion, to maintain communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury and the rest of the Communion [Emphasis mine – DCT]
• Maintain our commitment to the teachings of the Anglican Communion in all areas of the Christian Faith and especially on human sexuality (Lambeth 1.10).
• Maintain our commitment to the Windsor Process.
I thought this a very odd set of priorities.
The traditionalists dominated the visioning event
The Saturday-morning visioning event took place in the cathedral’s parish hall. The organizers announced that there were about 200 of us there.
The traditionalists did their homework well: They packed the meeting with their supporters. A lot of the St. John the Divine vestry were there, as well as many from St. Martin’s.
After the conference facilitator described the agenda, we broke into randomly-assigned small groups of about eight people each. Each group wrote up to eight vision statements in big letters on large strips of paper, roughly 4 inches by 36 inches.
My small group was mostly from St. Stephen’s Houston, a small, liberal, gay-friendly "inside the Loop" parish, not far from St. John the Divine. There were also a couple of more-traditionalist participants. We got alone very well, even though we didn’t agree on everything.
(In contrast, the husband of one of our group’s members said he was attacked pretty strongly by a traditionalist in his group because he objected to a statement committing the diocese to the Windsor process. He said the traditionalist asked him, "what parish are you from"; when he said he was from St. Stephen’s, the traditionalist hissed, "well, you’ve got an agenda." My reaction on hearing this account was: And you don’t?)
After the small-group session, we reconvened as a whole. Each small group had a spokesperson read its proposed vision statements aloud. All the statements were pasted on huge sheets of paper lining the entire wall.
Surprise, surprise: There were all kinds of proposed vision statements that the diocese must stay in communion with the rest of the Anglican Communion, and we must elect a bishop who can and will do this.
(There were also the usual aspirations to plant more churches, get our youth more involved, etc. My experience is that this kind of vision statement is usually no more than a platitude, with nothing ever coming of it.)
We then broke back up into our small groups again. Our mission was to come up with a list of the five most important vision statements. We reassembled again, and each group pasted its vision statements on the wall in topical groups.
Voting on the vision statements
Now came the climax. Each of us was given four colored dots. Our task was to vote for the vision statements pasted on the wall by putting colored dots on the ones we thought were most important.
Sure enough, by far the most colored dots were on the vision statements about staying in the Anglican Communion and electing a bishop who will do so.
Next: A general survey?
We were told that the next step in the process is for the diocesan staff to compile the vision statements, boil them down into representative language, and then send out a survey to the diocese. I’ll be curious to see how that plays out.
Conclusion
I’m betting that our trads will do exactly as they’ve said they want to: When Bishop Wimberly retires, they’ll muster their forces and elect a new bishop who will be willing to take the diocese out of TEC.
Alright then; sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander. I’ve said to the traditionalists unhappy about General Convention 2003 that these are the governance processes we’ve all agreed to; that applies just as much when the trads have the political power as when the liberals do. In fact, moderates and liberals in the Diocese of Texas won’t even have standing to complain if they don’t get more active in the process.
I predict the next couple of years in the diocese aren’t going to be fun for liberals or moderates. And in the meanwhile we’ll be wasting time and resources on these fights (UPDATE: including property disputes) that we could be devoting instead to bringing people to God, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and these other boring chores Jesus might have mentioned something about.
I suspect the end result will be a new Anglican diocese, along with a much-smaller, moderate/liberal TEC diocese being formed out of those who remain, who will include me.
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