Posted on: July 1st, 2015 Episcopal GC 2015 – Is Anyone Listening?
As an Episcopal priest serving in Texas, I am well acquainted with something like political whiplash. Or perhaps it could be better described as ideological schizophrenia.
On the one hand, I minister in a national Church which tends to line up with the views expressed on salon.com or sometimes even gawker.com. On the other hand, I serve in a local context in which if one dare question the reigning assumptions of Fox News, his or her status as a good American is now deeply suspect.
This is the vantage point from which I observe the goings on at General Convention in Salt Lake City. I pray for my bishops, that they will somehow discern the mind of Christ, and for the clergy and lay delegates from our diocese, that they will have discernment and serve faithfully.
I read of the actions and results of General Convention: a march against gun violence, a canonical redefinition of Holy Matrimony, a likely move to divest allocations from certain ideologically offensive funds.
Whether I agree on these issues is totally irrelevant to this article, as is my admission that many in Texas need to hear aspects of the Episcopal Church’s views on these issues.
The question I’m asking is: “is anyone listening?” Yes, many of the major news outlets, traditional and online, will carry the stories. But does anyone in my local ministry context—the folks our community is reaching out to in evangelism—really care?
What is interesting is that, while most of these contacts—the people we believe God is calling to come and taste our Anglican way of being Christian—are quite happy to be living in a “red state,” many of them are not. A good percentage are for gay marriage, against the alleged “right” to bear arms. But both groups are attending our events at church and our evangelistic parties and venues out on the town and at people’s homes: crawfish boils, film nights, pub gatherings, bible studies, service projects.
These people—on the left and on the right—are nothing if not cynical about the church. Many of them walked away from the church, from “organized religion,” years ago. And yet, they are responding to our invitations. They are hanging out with a peculiar group of people (our church community) who love the Body of Christ. They are being drawn in, as if by a “good infection” (to quote CS Lewis).
And now for some more good news. You see, in my local ministry context, we have earned the trust of the community; we have been granted the “right” to minister in ways public (news interviews, interfaith efforts, initiatives for the poor, multi-church conferences) and private (counseling sessions, hospital visits, visits to incarcerated folks). People in our city trust us “on the ground.” They know that we love them, that we love Jesus, and that we are committed to serving our neighbors.
So the ones who would roll their eyes (at best) at the news coming out of Salt Lake City trust us and open themselves up to us anyway, and the ones who would give their Twitter feed a “high five” as the news rolls out of Utah, even if they were to pay attention … these people let us into to their lives, not because they agree with the developments of G.C. They do so, rather, because of something more local, more embodied, more important: a lived encounter with the love of Christ.
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