Yesterday was pretty wild around here with the early morning news of the SCOTUS ruling on marriage equality. The committee on marriage was told the news and decided to ajourn so members and visitors could have time to receive it and communicate with others.

The President of the House of Deputies, the Reverend Gay Jennings, preached a wonderful sermon at daily Eucharist. We were also led in worship by Theodicy Jazz Collective, which includes Ann Phelps of St. Andrew’s Cathedral in Jackson, MS. Ann’s voice led us beautifully and the music was stirring.

Legislative sessions today dealt with some easy resolutions and defeated a resolution to adopt the Donor’s Bill of Rights. Canon David Johnson of Mississippi was a principle speaker against the resolution with some very wise words.

Last night the marriage committee held hearings on the four marriage liturgies submitted by the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music. It was interesting to note how lightly attended the hearing was. Almost all those testifying were in favor, with one opposed and one bishop wanting to make sure they had discretion to not use these in their diocese. These rites will most likely be proposed as “trial rites” which moves them closer to prayer book revision, which could possibly take place in 2018. The rites offer four ways to “do” marriages and  / or blessing liturgies, with gender neutral language. One of them is from the 1928 prayer book! Trial use would provide feedback to the SCLM for GC in 2018.

This morning I am attending marriage committee meetings where the committee debates the resolutions after the hearings. Marriage hearings are over with so now the committee gets into the sausage making. I will be on the floor for legislative sessions today, which will include the House of Deputies receiving and concurring on the election of a new Presiding Bishop. The House of Bishops will meet at St. Mark’s Cathedral to elect the PB. Will there be purple smoke?

Some important legislation should show up today at the House of Deputies, including A037 which extends the work of the marriage task force, adds members to it, and requires more cultural and theological diversity. While I would love to continue on the task force, odds are most of the members will be new. The bishops passed A037 without dissent.

As always you can go to generalconvention.org and actually check on resolutions, and go to the media hub for live streaming of worship and other activities.

The legislative process continues to lumber along. The two houses (Deputies and Bishops) met twice today, but primarily for organizing themselves and welcoming visiting dignataries and the like. In the 2nd session of the day the House of Deputies (HoD) spent over an hour nitpicking new rules of order, which had been worked on these last 3 years by a committee of people who really knew what they were doing. The new rules are definitely an improvement. But taking over an hour to wordsmith the committee’s good work was exhausting to behold. Several amendments were offered, all defeated easily. After all the debate, the rules passed by over 95%! 

The legislative committee on marriage met yesterday morning to discuss the first 4 resolutions from the previous night’s hearing. A lot of discussion around extending the work of the Task Force on Marriage took place. They added money to the budget request in order to insist on much broader consultation with Anglican Communion partners, inserted language to make sure the reconstituted Task Force is more reflective of cultural and theological diversity, and implored the Church to really use the materials (toolkit especially) produced by the Task Force already. (A caveat for those who do not know – I am currently a member of the Task Force, so a bit of pride in our work may creep into my comments. Should GC approve the continuation of the Task Force, I would love to continue to serve on it, but we all understand that will be entirely up to the Presiding Officers  – the Presiding Bishop and the President of the House of Deputies). Bishop Dorsey McConnell of Pittsburgh was particularly critical of the Task Force report and what he deems the one-sided nature of the theological arguments. He was perturbed by it enough to oppose the resolution imploring the Church to use the study materials because he disagrees with the theolgical, historical, canonical essays. Thankfully, Bishop Tom Ely of Vermont defended our work (he is also on theTask Force) and challenged McConnell’s statement. In the end the committee approved the amended resolution to continue the work, which means it now goes into the pipeline to be debated by the two houses, where it can be approved, amended, rejected, or sent back to the committee.

Last night the committee held hearings on proposed canonical changes. Our Task Force had filed one of those resolutions which changes the canon on marriage in several areas. While the majority of those speaking at the hearing (anyone is allowed to sign up to speak) were in favor of the canonical change, which changes language of “man and woman” and “husband and wife” to “two parties”, there were some passionate pleas to not mess with this. For some it was “we are not ready for this”, for others this was moving our church out of “Christendom” (someone needs to tell the speaker that Christendom is over, thanks be to God).
Bishop Shannon Johnston of Virgina (and formerly of Mississippi) gave us a peek at a core piece of the argument against the canon changes. While stating emphatically he was in full support of marriage equality, he believes strongly that changing the canon is the wrong way to go. He encouraged the committee to put forward the suggested new liturgies which are gender neutral and consider them prayer book revision (trial rites), which could allow them to be part of the prayer book in 2018 (having been approved by two consecutive General Conventions). The House of Bishops will be where the rubber meets the road on all this.
I enjoyed a late dinner with my bishop, the Rt. Rev. Brian Seage. It was really good to catch up, being a long way from my home diocese I needed to reconnect and discuss my future with him.

Off to the new day, your prayers are appreciated.