Final report from General Convention 2018 on Ecumenical and Interreligious Relations
For those of you wondering about the fate of Ecumenical and Interreligious resolutions (EIR) coming from our General Convention, you may have noticed that this is only my second post. That’s because the bulk of the resolutions came to the floor only within the last two days. There are several reasons for that, but its all procedural and not worth elaborating on.
First of all, I would like to express my appreciation for all the members of the Joint Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Relations, which worked efficiently, congenially, and transparently. I would especially like to thank the chairs The Rt. Rev. Eugene Sutton and The Rev. Winnie Varghese, who extended me voice at several points as the representative of EDEIO. I also would like to thank The Rev. Margaret Rose, The Presiding Bishop’s Deputy for Ecumenical and Interreligious Relations and our own secretary Richard Mammana. Richard provided background information on several occasions that moved us forward. In addition, our Vice President Lynne Bleich Weber and our Province 3 coordinator Maria Tjeltveit were present at events and helped make ecumenical and interreligious guests feel at home.
The passed resolutions fall into three categories — those of structural change, those regarding our full-communion relationships, and those creating and commending dialogues. The full google spreadsheet with statuses and links can be found here.
An outlier is A225 On the Importance of Ecumenism for Becoming Beloved Community, which ties in the work of ecumenism to the mission priorities of The Episcopal Church.
Structural Change
For many of us, this was the defining issue of EIR for this convention. Since the dissolution of the Standing Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Relations (SCEIR) along with other standing committees in 2015, there has been a real lack of capacity in working on ecumenism, coming to a loggerhead in the difficulty making a response to the World Council of Church’s The Church, Towards a Common Vision in a timely manner.
There were several solutions suggested to move us forward. The one selected was passed in D055 Coordination of Ecumenical and Interreligious Work. This creates a task force of the Standing Commission on Structure, Governance, Constitution and Canons (SCSGCC), made up of up to three bishops, thee clergy, three laity and three members of SGSGCC, all of whom are to be selected for technical expertise. This task force is charged with
“addressing matters of ecumenical and interreligious significance, including but not limited to: respond to ecumenical and interreligious issues that may arise between meetings of General Convention; have primary responsibility for developing responses to ecumenical and interreligious documents; assist the Presiding Bishop, appropriate DFMS staff, and the Executive Council with formulating and implementing ecumenical and interreligious policy.”
EDEIO gets a specific shout-out, with the expectation that we will have a liaison on that task force. This really is a good outcome. It is clearly a technical group, and thus should be able to get the work done that the church needs it to do.
Full-Communion Relationships
While many watched A041 Episcopal Church-United Methodist Dialogue, the resolution simply commended the work of that dialogue. The real work on that will come in 2020 for the UMC and 2021 for us. To learn more about that work, go to umc-tec.org. The question about the Church of Sweden actually consumed much of the committee’s work. D085 Communion Relationship with Church of Sweden was the fruit of that work. It effectively declares that we have always been in full communion because of the long history of full-communion actions we have taken with each other since colonial times. Click on the “View original Version” button on that page if you would like to see the explanation detailing that relationship. Resolutions A090 Amend Canons Concerning Full Communion and D056 Amend Canons I.20 and III.10.2(a)(3) are especially important for changes that alter the canons so we don’t have to amend them every time we enter into a full-communion agreement.
Creating and Commending Dialogues
A036 Affirm Ongoing Work and Dialogue with Ecumenical Bodies and A037 Encourage Interfaith Engagement commends our ongoing ecumenical and interreligious work. A new dialogue with the Lutherans in Bavaria is called for in C059 Dialogue between The Episcopal Church and the Lutheran Church in Bavaria. Conversations with Anglican Communion partners with congregations in the United States are called for in D043 Welcoming the Church of South India and D088 Dialogue with South Sudanese Anglican Diaspora. A035 Commend “The Church Towards A Common Vision” simply commends the WCC document to the Church. It would appear that the draft response sent to the WCC is our de-facto one.
A series of resolutions on Israel/Palestine were passed, none of which passed through the EIR committee. We will need to look into the interreligious impact these resolutions will have.
This has been a productive convention in terms of Ecumenical and Interfaith work, and it was a pleasure representing the organization.
The Rev. David Simmons, President, EDEIO
