This week, most of our clergy team traveled to the Rock Eagle 4-H Center in Eatonton, GA, for a joint clergy conference with the Diocese of Atlanta. The two dioceses have not done anything like this together since the Diocese of Georgia split itself in two when it formed the Diocese of Atlanta in 1907. There were approximately 210 priests and deacons at the conference, and our keynote presenter was our Presiding Bishop, The Most Rev. Sean Rowe. His topic for our time together was “To Be Effective Witnesses,” a way to think about faithful ministry in a time of profound change and challenge.
This was my first occasion to experience the depth of our Presiding Bishop’s wry sense of humor. He was funny but in poignant ways; he was self-effacing, both personally and when describing us as Episcopalians. He fully acknowledged the difficulties for those in ministry, particularly those of us who stand in pulpits (or at least near them), but he also made no mistake in saying there is much to be hopeful about. Our hope comes from Jesus Christ, of course, and in that regard, Bishop Rowe admitted he was “a prisoner of hope,” borrowing a line from the Prophet Zechariah. If only we could all latch onto hope as firmly!
One of the biggest challenges facing denominations like ours is the rise of a version of Christianity that is quickly taking hold and becoming the dominant interpretation in some ways and in some quarters. We summarize it under the heading of Christian Nationalism, with the common denominator that the Gospel is being twisted in such a way as to make it seem that power and dominance (by Christians) is God’s hope for the world. The historic and orthodox position that Bishop Rowe kept returning us to is simply that Jesus Christ is our reality, and Christ’s teaching and work were centered on disrupting power and dominance in this world in favor of the grace and love of God’s kingdom. The center of our being is the poor and the vulnerable, as they were the center of Jesus’ work.
He encouraged us to reconsider how we can do the work of God together, “rather than as a group of individuals who do performatively self-righteous things disconnected from the communities around us.” He reminded us to live out of God’s imagination, not the imaginations of this world. He invited us to consider how Christ is manifested in the world right now for us. Not with a sense that sometimes God is winning and sometimes God is losing, but that God has already won through Jesus Christ. We’re not playing along, hoping that God wins someday, because God has already won. Our role is to preach the Gospel to all people with that message, which takes intention.
We also spent some time talking about institutions. We are in a period of history that will be recognized as one in which institutions and their authority were weakened or outright destroyed. This applies to the church, as the church is an institution. While people are largely critical of institutions these days, we can’t pretend that institutions don’t have their importance, and that the institutional church, in particular, still has value. We need to be an institution that, while admittedly corrupt and sinful (as all human institutions are), can work at repentance and growth. We also need to be an institution that is not afraid to do the unique work that belongs to the church without cowering in fear and concern because we’re at risk when we speak truth about God and Jesus to a world that doesn’t want to hear a message that challenges its own authority.
Bishop Rowe reminded us that we should never sound like the Republican party or the Democratic party, but like the Church. He shared a bit of wisdom Archbishop Rowan Williams shared with the Lambeth Conference in 2008, suggesting that bishops (and applicable to the broader church) should be “an unreliable ally.” Essentially, that means that the people and powers of this world shouldn’t count on the fact that the church will tell them what they want to hear. Sometimes the church will challenge a person, regardless of their political perspective, and that person will have to deal with their discomfort when it happens. Unfortunately, the modern trend is that if our church makes us uncomfortable, we find another church that doesn’t challenge us and what we believe. We want the church to be a reliable ally that doesn’t demand much from us. But that’s not how God or the church works.
He said a lot more in his three lectures, but this approach to seeing our place in the world at this time, and the conversations we had around it, was helpful. There were moments of thinking, “Hey, I’m doing ok.” I also thought, “Wow, I have a long way to go.” I found myself energized by the process of thinking about discernment for today, for the wider church, but also for the church right here at home, and at the foundational level for myself. I hope my optimism about the church and its future comes through when I teach and preach, because I very much think our future is bright. I take a lot of comfort in that expectation too, if for no other reason than that I recognize how desperately the world needs what Christ has to offer and how wonderfully we’re positioned to share it. Whether we try to be or not, we are witnesses – people see how Christians and churches behave, and it bears witness to something. Hopefully, it bears witness to God’s truth. If not, we can learn to be effective witnesses with some discernment and God’s help.
