I’ve been pondering over the past several days various themes that predominated from GC 2009 and thought I’d share them with you.
1) Conservatives had a much better convention this time around. Things were bright and sunshiny outdoors—and in our hearts. We came with certain expectations and those were largely fulfilled.
2) Moderates—those who now will be taking their place on the “rightward fringe” of the Episcopal church—had a pretty bad time and were shell-shocked by the hard-left voting and “debate” [sic] on the floor of the House of Deputies. I think this was the first convention where they saw that the Heresy and Dysfunction Boulder at the national level was not going to be stopped and indeed was going to be rolling much faster and much farther to the bottom than they could ever have imagined—and I think that they are very anxious, concerned, disturbed, and confused as to what to do. Believe me, as one looks down into the abyss, it’s a lot farther down and a whole lot darker than some had expected. The differences between the two gospels engaged in battle within TEC were stark and clear—and the gulf was simply massive between the two.
The moderates were also more open to talking with the conservatives. Many expressed admiration of the deputies from Central Florida, Dallas, Albany, and South Carolina, as it is quite clear that those deputies are battle-hardened, strategic leaders who aren’t afraid to demonstrate their prowess at Roberts Rules of Order, as well as at reasoned response based on scripture and tradition. This is probably not the time to be anything but honest, strong, and gentle in your conversations with them, focusing on practical things that they can do, if they decide they feel like it.
3) Moderates of integrity and with leadership skills will return to their parishes and tell the unblinking truth. Moderates who are otherwise will return to their parishes and do otherwise and hope to put the long 10-day nightmare behind them.
4) The finest hour for the conservatives was in repeatedly standing up and stating clearly—on the record—what they believed, as well as putting key votes on the record, either through roll call votes or votes by orders. Well done. This kind of stuff is not for weak-minded or weak-hearted people. It would have been far far easier to keep silent, suffer through it, and escape early. But we are now left with beautiful on-the-record stuff that will be incredibly useful in the years to come.
5) Credit where credit is due. As at the HOB meeting that took up the matter of Bishp Duncan’s deposition, the Communion Partner bishops and rectors shone in extremely challenging circumstances. They just did. They were repeatedly at the microphone. Though most of them on the House of Deputies side are not as solid as the old Network folks on *strategery* and Roberts Rules, in general [with a few exceptions] they stood up for the right thing and tried their hardest. That is all anyone can do. There were, from my point of view, some missteps. They didn’t, for instance, make the Anaheim statement hard enough so that those voting for the two resolutions in question couldn’t sign on to it. A simple addition of “we repudiate D025 and C056” would have sufficed for that. But by and large, they slogged through the 10 days with their heads up and with a clear plan that they carried through almost entirely consistently. For people who haven’t done this sort of thing at a large meeting with many complexities, it’s hard to conceive of how challenging it is to accomplish.
This plan was aided by swift and clear statements from both Fulcrum [a huge shock from my point of view] and the ACI [not so shocking].
Again—I have little to complain about with them regarding this particular meeting. I could complain about other things—and have—but not regarding GC 2009.
6) The progressive activists are still furious. One would think—if one weren’t watching and weren’t aware of what drives them—that they would be happy because of Big Wins. But judging from the overheard comments on the final days of the convention, they’re still Boiling Enraged—it seems to be intrinsic to their makeup and I don’t expect them to ever be able to fix that. Nothing will serve but that people affirm their decisions and pretend as if they agree with their choices. And since that’s not going to happen, there you are. Just watch their various announcements and you’ll always catch that barely restrained and not-very-well-papered-over anger and outrage.
7) The expected battle between the institutional revisionists and ideological revisionists wasn’t really a battle so much as a cave-in and submerging. The best practical hope for the institutional revisionists [remember—these are the ones who want to drop-anchor-and-hope-they-all-fall-asleep-because-we-still-need-the-homophobic-fundamentalists-for-our-ASA-and-coffers people] was to attempt to hold off the ideological revisionists enough to produce something vague and innocuous-sounding. That hope, obviously, was dashed.
8) What the ideological revisionists could not accomplish in 2006, they accomplished in 2009. I do appreciate in the honesty and clarity that this convention brought.
9) The Lambeth Conference wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, was it? Turns out, the institutional revisionists found the pressure of the left-fringe constituency of TEC to be far greater and more important than the much-vaunted newly strengthened relationships with bishops in the rest of the Communion.
So much for the Indaba tactics. So much for the “success” of the meeting itself.
10) I pointed out to several people while at convention that—as was predicted time and time and time again in the past six years and largely ignored or denied—post-Lambeth meeting the revisionist bishops would have nothing to hold them back, restrain them, or tether them.
The late actions of General Convention 2006 were all about the bishops getting their tickets to the Lambeth meeting. But once that ticket was punched and they got to attend . . . there was nothing left to lose or gain [considering their own priorities, that is]. Nine years from now, the Lambeth meeting may—or may not be—held again. But many of the bishops who voted at this convention got “their” Lambeth—back in 2008.
11) The frantic spin coming out of the Mouth of 815 is hampered by our own bishops who largely agree—as Kendall Harmon’s patient link-posting demonstrates—that D025 and C056 are indeed a “moving on” from and repudiation of the former protestations of restraint made by the General Convention of 2006. Moreover, the frantic spin coming out of the Mouth of 815 reveals that they are worried and anxious. I find that interesting, but not particularly enlightening. It simply is what it is and is mighty fascinating to note.
12) One of my highly strategic friends stated that he believed there were more conservatives in TEC than out of TEC in other Anglican structures. I might not go quite that far—but then again, I might. As with 2006, I duly emailed my contacts within various dioceses to find out something about their deputations. I did not have contacts in perhaps 8-10 dioceses. The rest of the dioceses I had plenty. They duly responded with their intel. I then developed a list of some 150 deputies who are essentially conservative—that’s about 20% of the deputies and that fits well with my estimate of how the General Convention stacks up. The rest are hard kooky fringe left or merely fringe left [compared with the US in general, and even compared with TECUSA in general], along with some confused moderates many of whom were snapped awake by repeated blows about the head and shoulders.
Interestingly, the people I emailed this time around are far better informed than three years ago about their deputations. They’ve been watching and learning.
I emailed out to folks at the convention and we ended up doing two suppers—the first with 14 mostly strangers whom I’d never met before, the second with 27 [and one whole deputation beyond that ended up in the bar], mostly strangers whom I’d never met before. With the latter, people drug along their fellow conservative deputies who weren’t on my list. These were fantastic meals, and in the latter case, someone had the bright idea of getting everyone to sign up on a piece of paper and let me email them a list of the people there, so folks can keep in touch.
Throughout the convention both I and Matt had people introducing themselves to us from various dioceses with whispered confessions that they were reading, many of them while on the floor of the houses, and some of them that they had been reading for years. These were from places like San Diego, Connecticut, and elsewhere.
All of this was far far easier to accomplish than it was at 2006. For one thing, all of us on the StandFirm side have learned how to do a whole lot more, and conservatives in general have gotten a lot bolder in making contact.
17 Comments •
Nicely done…could you elaborate on #6 because that one left me mystified…