ISSUES

2006

SATURDAY JUNE 17

ISSUES 2006 may be seen at

http:\\www.theconsultation.org\

Immigration

For the past three months, immigrations have dominated new stories from coast to coast, border to border. The controversy has drawn attention away from the immoral, failing war in Iraq and corruption in the U.S. Government. The victims of this ploy are millions of hard working people dedicated to their families, communities and faith communities including the Episcopal Church.

Economics are the driving force of massive immigration into the U.S. (and other countries), and the U.S. in practice welcomes the immigrant boost to the economy. There are statistics to be tossed about, indignant self-righteousness about “breaking the law,” and with each case of illegal immigration there is a human face.

My home parish was really excited a little over a year ago when we were able to hire a Hispanic/Latino Missioner and Youth Director. Juan is Mexican born and has lived in the U.S. for 20 years (originally coming as an undocumented 14 year old). He was adopted by an Episcopal priest and his wife, an ESL teacher. He graduated from a U.S. college, English became his dominant language and U.S. culture his dominant culture. In the late 90s, Juan gained legal status through a religious worker visa. Due to a paperwork glitch and a lost in the mail application for an extension, Juan’s visa lapsed. Our parish re-petitioned – Juan left in December for his visa interview. Six months and $8,000.00 in attorney fees later, he is stuck in Mexico while U.S. immigration sits on his request for a waiver. Juan is one individual of millions separated from family, his job and community by our broken immigration system.

Compassionate immigration reform should include:

• A path to legal residency

• Immigration responding to the labor need

• Family reunification

• Due process (legally)

• Humane immigration and border policy.

This policy is endorsed by the Anglican Peace with Justice Commission.

Dianne Aid

The Consultation endorses for Vice President of the House of Deputies

Gay Jennings

FINAL OPEN MEETING

of The Consultation

in Room D242 in the

Convention Center

Monday from 1:00 to 2:00

No food or drink please!

(We apologize for forgetting to remind you on Friday.)

Challenging Patriarchy

Issues of gender and sexuality will continue to cause turmoil and dissension in the church until The Episcopal Church undertakes a serious discussion of patriarchy. Patriarchy means “the rule of the father.” It is the social system in which men hold power and control. It is the root cause of the current uproar in the church, just as it under girded previous controversies over racial integration and the ordination of women.

Early patriarchal societies depended on men controlling the planting and harvesting of crops, the breeding of animals, and most important, women’s sexuality. This was necessary because patriarchal "civilization" is based on the power men have to pass on their private property to their children. Because it is much easier to determine maternity than paternity, men had to control their wives' bodies. Restricting women to severely circumscribed roles helps maintain this control.

Jesus challenged patriarchy in many ways – he never married or had children, he treated women as equals and he refused to respect the hierarchy of class and privilege. Patriarchy retaliated by killing him.

In a patriarchal society, the norm for “human being” is the heterosexual male. In western societies, the norm for “human being” is the white heterosexual male.

The consequences of this for women, non-white heterosexuals and non-heterosexuals are myriad and severe. In the hierarchy of patriarchy, one loses status the farther away one moves on the scale from the straight white male.

This normative system of sexuality is enforced not only by legislation, but also by the perhaps more powerful system of dividing men into “real” men and “deviant” men. “Real” men are sexually attracted to women and have children with them. This system holds that neither gay men nor lesbians contribute to the patriarchal structure of family, and considers that they are “threats” to “the family” and to “the sanctity of marriage.” Historically, the church and the state have helped maintain this patriarchal system.

As long as we are working out of a system which organizes itself along gendered lines, anyone who calls this so-called “natural order” into question will not only be stigmatized, but also oppressed by those in control. We need to follow the example of Jesus and challenge patriarchy. But we can’t do that until we understand it.

Katie Sherrod

Heard in the hall of the Convention Center

“The special committee was to have finished its work so the House of Deputies could act before the election of the new Presiding Bishop.” What has happened?

A Movie review

Wednesday evening there was a screening of a rough cut of Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North before a full audience. Katrina Browne, who introduced the film, conceived the original project for her family, the De Wolfes of Bristol, Rhode Island. I was struck by the bravery of the De Wolfes for conceiving the project and for following it through to completion, but even more by their willingness to share the painful and embarrassing experience so widely.

As someone who has spent two years on the Task Force on Reparations for Slavery in the Diocese of Maryland and helped pass resolutions committing the diocese to study how it has profited from slavery and segregation and calling on the General Convention to make a similar study and advocate a general study of the question, it was gratifying and inspiring to see the honesty with which Katrina and her family took on this issue. It is not surprising that the majority of people in the extended De Wolfe family she invited to join in the project were not ready to involve themselves in this painful process, but it was also clear that those who did join the pilgrimage were able to grow and to profit. Several of the speakers in the discussion following the screening said that their work on Anti-Racism has not shown much progress unless this earlier and more painful part of our history was uncovered and put to rest.

This video comes at a time when the study of reparations is on the public agenda. Traces of the Trade, even though it is on a smaller scale, may well have an impact as great at Roots did in an earlier generation.

The final film may be broadcast on PBS, but members of the convention who did not happen to see it on Thursday will be able to take advantage of showing of a full, more finished version in the Hyatt Regency Hotel, Delaware Ballroom Sunday night from 6:30 to 8:30 pm.

Ron Miller

A question.

How are we using the word “Covenant”? or

How does God understand “Covenant”?

Building and Growing the House

While the majority of our Church gathered to make the important decisions necessary for the future of how we continue our commitment to grow our Church in faith, love, and charity, the Episcopal Network on Economic Justice sponsored a field trip to Neighborhood House, Inc. – a Jubilee Center in the middle of a settlement housing area on the east side of Columbus.

“Unless the Lord build the house, those who build it labor in vain” Psalm 127:1a

As we traveled throughout the settlement we had the grace-filled opportunity of visiting one of the many houses that have been built through the efforts of this Jubilee ministry for people who might otherwise border on homelessness. A family of 3-4 members now sleeps in comfort and dignity because of this ministry.

I was reminded of the words of the prophet Micah as we visited various aspects of the Neighborhood House, Inc. ministry in east Columbus “…What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?”

There is so much literature that is being distributed on the floor of the Exhibit Hall about claiming God’s blessing, reconciliation, prayers before voting on issues, prayers on a daily basis prior to convention and during convention and today we experienced a glimpse of what the Church actually looks like when the people of God attempt to literally reconcile, pray, and claim God’s blessing.

God’s people living in harmony even in dire economic conditions, respecting the dignity of each other, and living out Micah’s words of doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly with their God as they not only provide housing with dignity, but also provide empowerment programs for unemployment, education, micro businesses, career development, as well as provide health and nutrition for a community who has been excluded from what most of us at this convention take for granted.

Neighborhood House, Inc. advocates with and for this community in an effort to bring about justice for all of its residents by working together with the local Episcopal Churches and the local government agencies. All of these thoughts reminded me of a Hopi wisdom saying that states:

“What should it matter that one bowl is dark And the other pale, if each is a good design and serves its purpose well?”

Whether we are serving our Church through legislative acts, centering prayers, profound meditations, inspiring sermons, field trips to a settlement housing area on the east side of Columbus – may I dare to say – we are all attempting to build and grow our Church. Perhaps Isaiah says it best (58:9b-12)

“If you remove the yoke from among you,

the pointing of the finger,

the speaking of evil,

if you offer your food to the hungry

and satisfy the needs of the afflicted,

then your light shall rise in the darkness

and your gloom be like the noonday.

The Lord will guide you continually,

And satisfy your needs in parched places,

And make your bones strong;

And you shall be like a watered garden,

Like a spring of water,

Whose waters never fail.

Carmen Guerro

New Cartoonist

It's been some years since we were supplied with cartoons to comment on the convention scene. We are enriched by the work of the Rev. Susan Williams and pray that the Diocese of Western New York will continue to elect her. (We're sure she's brilliant on the floor, but... first things first!!) Thank you Susan.

Who WANTS to Reconcile?

Thursday evening Episcopal priest and former U. S. Senator John Danforth told a Presiding Bishop’s Forum that reconciliation should take a leading role in everything the Episcopal Church does. What he said resonates with a great many Episcopalians not merely because we have differences (don’t we always?) but because reconciliation is the definitive Christlike role.

Jesus Christ came to reconcile the world to God, and though Danforth pointed out that God is primarily concerned not with the Church but with the world, the Church shares in that role. Reconciliation must mean helping to reduce conflict in the world, to care for those who have been forgotten and abandoned, to participate in conversation, community and to remain at the table – the conference table and the altar – with those we do not always agree.

Reconciliation resonates because we all need to be reconciled, and in order to do so we do not have to become the same. Of all the people I know who, like me, chose the Episcopal Church, being reconciled where we had not felt accepted or included before was perhaps the strongest part of the attraction. Even people who are initially attracted by liturgy alone soon realize that – since the Episcopal Church comes together at the table, worship is not “just” ceremony, it is intrinsic to the way we bind dissimilar people together.

The full inclusion of gays and lesbians in the Episcopal Church is part of this reconciling tradition. We came from a lot of traditions where we felt less included, less welcome, less free to “come and grow” as people of God. That is exactly what Bishop Gene Robinson was getting at when he said on Wednesday that “JESUS is the ‘homosexual agenda’ – Jesus is why we are here in the first place.

LGBT Episcopalians are not here to “hijack” the Church or to force anyone to do anything. There is assuredly room in the Church for those who are uncomfortable with us just as – graciously -- there has been room for us. We will remain in community, in conversation, and at the table not because it suits us but because we must. We aren’t going anywhere.

Reconciliation breaks down when anyone says, in those now oft-repeated words, “I have no need of you.” There can be no reconciliation with those who will not share the Eucharist with one another, who turn their backs and walk away when someone ties to talk with them, who say in effect that God loves me better than you.

Fortunately, there are many people of many perspectives in the Episcopal Church who do intend to reconcile with one another. For that reason I believe John Danforth was right when he said the Episcopal Church can be the “right church at the right time.”

Bob Van Keuren

Lunch Time Speaker

under

The Consultation banner

Today at 1:15 -- Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson, Bishop of the Diocese of New Hampshire

(He will sign his book at the Integrity Booth before and after speaking.)

Sunday, The Rev. Alta Gracia Perez,

If you find us useful, please will drop by the Consultation Booth in the Exhibit Hall and make a financial contribution. Envelopes are available.

We obviously have had a change of schedule and are happy to present you with another issue of ISSUES. Watch for the next one, probably Monday morning.