Turner Comments on Proposal to Reform Constitution and Canons of TEC

The Rev. Dr Philip Turner

Introduction

Proposals for review and reform of the Constitution and Canons of The Episcopal Church (TEC) have in recent months appeared in a number of quarters. It is as important to ask the reasons for these concerns as it is to assess the wisdom of the actual proposals. As yet the proposals as well as the reasons for them remain either hidden or only partially revealed. In respect to the concrete proposals, we have at present only one—that made recently in addresses by TEC’s Presiding Bishop (P.B) and its Chief Operating Officer (C.O.O).¹ As to the reasons for these calls for reform we have only very partial or purely speculative knowledge. The proposals of the P.B and the C.O.O have been motivated (so it appears from the contents of their addresses) in part by a decline in TEC’s numbers and material resources. Their reasons as well stem from a view of the mission of the church that they do not believe to be adequately supported by its present forms of governance and administration.

There have been other calls for reform—the most notable of which comes from the President of the House of Deputies. We have been informed that she has gathered a committee of her own to review the Constitution and Canons, and that the committee has completed its work. As yet the composition of the committee and the results of its discussions have not been made public, but we understand that the plan is to circulate them to the delegates to General Convention before next it meets. As I say, the reasons for and the contents of these discussions have not as yet been made public, but we can guess at the general direction in which they might lead. The President of the House of Deputies on several occasions has expressed the view that the House of Bishops ought not to meet separately from the House of Deputies. It ought to be folded into a single house now made up only of the Presbyteral and Lay Orders. Here the motivation seems to be to establish strict equality between the various orders of the church.

I know of one other proposal—that made by the present Bishop of Arizona. His view is that, because of the exigencies now faced by TEC, emergency but temporary powers ought to be given to the P.B. Here the motivation is a desire to address a crisis, and the proposal is to make available to the P.B the emergency but temporary power to do so. I have as yet been unable to find either a delineation of the nature of the crisis or a specification of what the necessary emergency powers might be.

In short, we stand but 6 months away from TEC’s next General Convention, knowing only that a discussion of the Constitution and Canons will take place but with scant knowledge of either the reasons for this discussion or the sort of proposals that will be its subject matter. At best this seems a haphazard way to go about a matter of such fundamental importance. In view of this disturbing reality, the purpose of this paper is to look at the one proposal that has seen the light of day and comment on its adequacy. I will not speculate on any of the reasons for the proposal beyond those specifically mentioned in the presentations themselves. My discussion will be divided into two parts. The first examines the prolegomena to reform put forth by the P.B. The second will examine the specific program of reform proposed by the C.O.O.

Prolegomena

The P.B begins her presentation with a question, “Why are we here?” Her answer is “To serve the mission of God.” She describes this mission in various ways, but her view can be summed up by saying that the mission of the church is to assist God in a struggle to bring about the kingdom of God here on earth. That Kingdom she understands to be an “inner worldly” state in which justice, peace, and prosperity along with care for the creation obtain. At a later point in her address she says that in carrying out this mission we become “co-creators” with God.

She locates her view first within the confines of liberation theology. She does so by offering Jesus’ sermon in the Synagogue at Nazareth as the scriptural foundation for her position (Luke 4:16-19). She also locates her position within what she calls “the Anglican understanding of mission.” According this understanding mission has five “marks.” They are (1) proclamation of the good news of a reconciled and healed world (the kingdom of God), (2) a call to teach, baptize and nurture, (3) engage in service to the needy, (4) transform the unjust structures of the world and (5) care for the earth.

There are numerous problems with this account of both the nature and the mission of the church, but before I mention some of them, it is necessary to note that a majority of Anglicans from Africa, Southeast Asia and Southern Cone hardly recognize this characterization as “the” or even “an” Anglican understanding of the nature of the church and its mission. If asked, they would point out that the P.B’s understanding of both mission and the church is almost exclusively moral. Reconciliation with God, which for most Anglicans is the heart of the message it is the mission of the church to communicate, is spelled out in the P.B’s remarks almost exclusively in respect to “inner worldly” relations and goals. These inner worldly concerns, to the mind of most Anglicans, are by no means unimportant; but they insist nonetheless that reconciliation with one’s fellow human beings is utterly dependent upon prior reconciliation with God. The Gospel, as they understand it, has first of all to do with the reconciliation that Christ, through the cross, effects between human kind and God. It is this reconciliation (which receives no attention in the PB’s address) that, to the minds of most Anglicans, creates (in this present age) the conditions (if only partial) for peace, justice, the alleviation of want and care for the creation. It is this sort of reconciliation that, to their minds, comprises the first order of business in both the common life of the church and its mission.²

It is the moralization by TEC of what constitutes salvation that has led so many Anglican’s from the Global South to conclude that TEC has lost touch with the essentials of the Gospel. It is for this reason also that some provinces from the Global South have not only broken communion with TEC but have as well begun efforts within the continental United States to create ecclesial bodies both independent of TEC and alternative to it. Though many do not realize it, it is in fact a dispute over the content of the Gospel rather than a moral disagreement that has caused such deep divisions within the Anglican Communion as a whole—divisions over both the content of the Good News and the nature of governance within the Communion.

It is nonetheless the view of the nature and mission of the church held by its P.B and C.O.O that provides the primary justification for the changes they propose in its form of governance. As TEC’s C.O.O says in his address, we need a church in which form follows function. If the function of the church is mission, then the form it assumes ought to follow from and support this enterprise. Or as the PB says, if mission means being sent, the mission requires that the members of the church be “on the road” rather than “in the camp.” From their perspective, the problem is that TEC is structured so as to keep its members in the camp. This means that the focus of TEC’s common life is on stability rather than growth, change and transformation.

It is, however, change and transformation that are called for, both by the crisis of the times and the nature of the Gospel itself. Change and transformation call the church out side the camp to what the P. B calls a “kenotic”--a ministry that centers on giving away. What is to be given away? It is not a message of God’s reconciling victory over sin and death. It is rather a message designed to equip people for “mature life in community”—a form of life that leads travelers to ask others what needs to be done. It is away of life that looks for the presence of the Spirit already present among those to whom one goes. It is this mode of travel that opens the way for “transformation.” It is this mode of travel that leads to a community capable of cooperating with god in “the repair of the world.” It is this mode of travel that leads, therefore, to a celebration of “the millennial goals” which, it would seem present the shape of a world repaired.

I hope this summary captures both the rhetoric and the content of the P.B.s account of the nature and mission of the church. Before assessing what she has said, one further point should be noted. A subtext that runs along with her presentation of the church as an agent of social and political transformation is one pointing out the need for superstructures that can help with matters that lie outside the competence of what might be called the local church. Thus, what might be called a “missional restructuring of the church” requires a body with more expert knowledge and greater resources if the more local embodiments of what she calls “the beloved community” are to do the work of transformation.

The implications of the P.B’s presentation are that God is calling on TEC to restructure in a way that “gets ride of the pews” and puts its members on the road. This effort will require a body with the expertise and resources to help the local church with matters of mission that lie beyond its competence. This proposal may be fairly called, as I have, the “technocratic proposal.”

I will turn to the specifics of the proposal in a moment, but first a general comment about the theological content of the P. B’s prolegomena is called for. To be candid, though she makes links between her position and liberation theology, there is nothing in her presentation that is different in a significant way from the proposals made a century ago by that great advocate of the social gospel, Walter Rauschenbusch. The Kingdom of God is an inner worldly state that can be characterized by justice, peace and social equality. Jesus came to set in motion forces that would transform not only individual lives but also the unjust structures of society. The job of the church is to carry on this work through the transformed lives of its members.

I mention Rauschenbusch not only because the account of the nature and mission to the church espoused by TEC’s P.B. so closely resembles his but because he understood in a way she apparently does not that a transformation of the nature and mission of the church of the sort he proposed required as well a change in the articulation of all the basic Christian doctrines. It is widely recognized that his proposals for theological transformation made of Christianity a completely different religion than that set forth at Nicaea. This is not the place for discussion of the changes in basic Christian doctrine implied by the P.B’s presentation of the mission of the church. I will point only to one. It has to do with the work of Christ and that of the church. Jesus, according to her account, comes to remedy the ills the disadvantaged of the world suffer. Forces that resisted his reforms killed him. Nevertheless, he has commissioned his church to continue that work and struggle against it opponents until it is complete.

Here we have a Christology that presents Christ as a moral hero whose death is a moral tragedy rather than a saving event. This moral Christology is followed by a moral account of the church that, by making it an instrument of redemption through social transformation, incorporates the church, as did Eusebius, into salvation history itself. In combination, I call this account of Christ and the church “the baton theory” of redemption. God sends Jesus to show the way to the kingdom (on earth) and Jesus, after running his race faithfully, hands the baton over to his followers who now carry on the work.

I believe that it is one version or another of this theology that now shapes the mind of the leadership of TEC. It is a false presentation of Christian doctrine that requires the sternest form of criticism. But this is not the place for such an enterprise. The present task it to examine and assess the program attached to it in the address by TEC’s C.O.O

Program

In presenting his program, TEC’s C.O.O notes that an organization’s form ought to follow its function. The function of the church, both he and the P.B believe, is mission. Particularly because 50% of the income of the national church is spent on administration, the present form of the church does not adequately serve that end. Most importantly, neither does the way in which its finances are structured. Hence, he proposes a special General Convention to consider altering the TEC’s Constitution so as to bring the form of the church in line with its function, which is mission understood as social transformation. The gist of the C.O.O’s proposal is to restructure TEC through constitutional changes that will permit the “general church” (sometimes called “the church at large”) to spend more money on program (mission) and less on governance and administration. He concludes his proposal with a call for a special convention to accomplish this task before the election of the next P.B. He would like to reach a state where as much as 70% was spent on mission and 30% on administration. This would bring TEC into line with other non-profit charitable organizations.

Before I mention the sort of constitutional changes the C.O.O. has in mind, a couple of comments are called for. The first is that, along with the P. B. the C.O.O. thinks of the function of the church in a univocal fashion as mission (understood as social betterment). It makes sense then both to suggest, as he does, that TEC become without remainder the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society (DFMS). It also makes sense to devote the lion’s share of the assets of the church (at all levels) to mission. The problem is that no account of the nature and mission of the church is adequate that makes all activities of the church in some way or another an aspect of its mission. As a matter of logic, if every thing is mission, mission loses all meaning. In a word, if every thing is mission, nothing is mission. The word has no identifiable content that makes it what it is rather than what it is not. Of greater importance than this logical point is the fact that no adequate account of the nature of the church can simply describe it as “being sent.” Take a brief look at the Pauline letters, for example. There the church is God’s people called out of all the peoples of the earth to form a nation or assembly. It is called to live a form of life that manifests that found in Christ (and so distinguishes it from other peoples and other nations). It is called together to worship, praise and glorify God. And yes, it is called together to gather the nations into one people who join in the worship, praise and glorification of the one true God. The church is sent to be sure, but first it is called together to live a form of life and form those who are still children in the Lord into right worship and holy living.

One must ask if the presentation of the P.B. and the C.O.O. even come close to giving an adequate account of the nature and calling of the church. And the answer to the question must be NO! If the answer is indeed no, as indeed it is, then the proposal to devote as much as 70% of the TEC’s resources to mission is misconceived from the outset. It follows also that the driving force behind the proposals to modify TEC’s constitution is misconceived. That driving force from beginning to end is budgetary. It is important to note that the sole reason offered by the C.O.O for restructuring the church is to increase the productivity for mission of the budget of the national church. Indeed, the C.O.O. offers no governance rational for restructuring governance. His only justification is a more appropriate allocation of resources for what he mistakenly takes to be the basic function of the Church. A proposal to change TEC’s form of governance as a means to alter the allocation of resources strikes this observer as terrifyingly inadequate and misconceived.

For example, given the view of the nature of the church espoused in this proposal and its prolegomena, one might ask what is to be done about worship, Christian formation, evangelism or aid to needy congregations within the U.S. and abroad. One could, of course, say that all of this is mission. Nevertheless, the truth is that all of it is not mission! The truth as well is that if all of these activities are (wrongly) declared to be mission they will necessarily take second place to mission understood as a struggle for social transformation. TEC will, in function as well as form, become an NGO dedicated to slightly left of center social and political causes.

That said, there is yet another troubling aspect of this proposal. It concerns the suggestions about altering TEC’s constitution and form of governance. As previously state, the C.O.O. suggests that one way to achieve the ends he has in mind is to make TEC identical with DFMS. Pursuant to this fundamental suggestion follow others. Chief among them are these. In the interest of resource re-allocation, the Executive Committee might undertake a significant proportion of the work now done by the General Convention, particularly formulation of “priorities and strategies.” General convention might meet less frequently and be reduced in size. The plethora of committees now extant could be reduced to five that concern themselves among other things with mission in the dioceses, mission beyond the dioceses, ecumenical and interchurch relations, and justice and peace.

As a friend has pointed out, under this scheme, the House of Bishops and the General Convention play a vastly reduced role in TEC’s governance. More important still is the fact that, by identifying TEC with DFMS, TEC becomes a corporation that is governed in fact by the Executive Council and its officers and administered by the staff at 815. It is true that under the suggestions made by the C.O.O the staff at 815 now exists to provide resources and expertise to the dioceses and parishes of TEC. These, however, become virtual outlets for a national corporation that now has an uncomfortable degree of influence over what happens at the local level (ironically termed by the C.O.O. as the real base from which mission occurs).

Conclusion

I would like now to make a few concluding comments about this proposal. The first concerns one of the fundamental justifications the C.O.O. offers for his suggestions. He believes that the heart of TEC lies where his does—with mission as social transformation. Nothing could be further from the truth. The budget of the national church is but a small percentage of the multibillion-dollar budgets of the parishes and dioceses that make up the membership of the General Convention. If one looked to the “local church” and asks where the money is spent and so where the heart of the parishes and dioceses lie, one would find that the energies of both go to worship, Christian formation, outreach and most of all maintenance of a worshipping community. Instinctively, they know better than the experts that set themselves the task of being helpful.

This simple fact indicates that TEC is much more than the DFMS. It is a church among the churches that even in its disobedience has a more adequate grasp of its nature and calling than one finds in this somewhat technocratic proposal. As a friend has written, “TEC is not identical with the DFMS nor should it ‘become’ so. The mission of TEC (I would prefer to say the self-understanding of TEC) is reflected in the aggregate budgets of TEC congregations, not in the one percent of those revenues (that the C.O.O. suggests) found in the DFMS budget. The DFMS budget sheds very little light at all on how TEC should be governed. TEC may need restructuring, but the only relevance the DFMS budget has to that question is whether TEC can afford to governance structures it now has. The fact that DFMS spends anything on mission is largely a historical accident.”