Did The Episcopal Church vote to revise its Prayer Book? Yes and No. The one thing missing from the 79th General Convention coverage is how we chose confusion over clarity.
Prayer Book Revision On Hold. Sort of. But Not Really?
Depending on where you got your General Convention coverage, the headlines declared the House of Bishops either opened the door to revision or closed the door on revision.
The headline I came up with was
The General Convention of The Episcopal Church chose to not revise and to not not revise the Book of Common Prayer.
[It’s a wonder I’m not an editor of a newspaper with a titillating headline like that!]
Let me speak candidly.
The bishops chickened out. The brass tacks, the TL;DR is that we are not starting a “Prayer Book Revision Process (trademark)” but are beginning “revision”.
What does this mean, you’re probably wondering. Good question.
Revision?
- So are we getting a new prayer book? I don’t know.
- Are we not getting a new prayer book? Maybe not!
- Are we getting an alternative service book? Who knows!
- Do we keep doing what we’re doing? Sounds like it!
- Wait! Isn’t this just kicking the can down the road? Absolutely!
- What does this all mean? None of us knows!
Now, when we’re talking revision, there’s a process. General Convention in 2015 authorized the standing committee responsible for our church’s liturgy to do the thoughtful research and planning and bring a proposal to this General Convention. They did.
That proposal went to the committee which held well-attended hearings. Hearings in which people made a multitude of testimonies. They ultimately offered a resolution to the House of Deputies for full revision of the Prayer Book.
After all this work, the Deputies offered a clear process for revision maintained within the existing structures of the church, setting demonstrable goals and target dates and present structures of authority.
And this is the stark contrast, between what the House of Deputies offered and what the Bishops offered back.
The Bishops’ replacement resolution got rid of the order, restarted the process, gave no targets or goals and created new structures in the form of an all new committee.
Why would they do this? Because we’ve all lost track of how unity actually forms.
Clouded Judgment
- Raise your hands if you have strong opinions about Prayer Book Revision.
- Raise your hands if you could explain to a total stranger all the ins and outs of revision, including the multitude of arguments for and against, what the impact of revision would be on the canons and structures of the church, and what an acceptable process would actually look like.
This is where the church has messed up. It thinks we can all have our opinions and share them freely, even threatening to break apart the church without endeavoring to actually listen to what each other is saying.
And worse, we think an opinion is equal to a supported argument.
Of course, this is no different from anything else in recent memory. We’ve mistaken hard-line stances and fears of disunity to silence debate for “the new normal” these last 15 years.
And our judgment around the Book of Common Prayer in particular is clouded. But a week and a half ago, it looked like the clouds were lifting.
This is what stirred such optimism in me. In the hearings, people shared their hopes and fears, not just their opinions. And people found consensus. They worked at it. Minds were changed.
One of my friends, a self-identified Anglo-Catholic opponent of Prayer Book revision became a full-throated supporter. Because he listened. He heard the testimonies of a wide variety of people offering more than two arguments. None of which were simply about style, fear, or change for the sake of change.
And he shared this change of heart with the House of Bishops.
Odds makers for full Prayer Book revision making it out of committee were not good, let alone passing the House of Deputies. But it got ⅔ majority. Why?
Building Unity
This wasn’t a vote to adopt a new prayer book. Or start a secretive process in which a few people do something we’ll all rubber stamp later.
Because the process itself begins with listening. It initiates listening!
We have to initiate a prayer book revision process to actually initiate a listening process. Because we should recognize it won’t happen otherwise. We can’t wait to hear people before we start.
Which is what we did back in 2015! We were literally in the beginning stage of the process!
In this convention, unity was created in committee through listening to each other. And a common unifying character was the call for a common prayer book for everyone. The way forward became clear to those in the room.
It was fitting then that our gospel for the Sunday after convention would be about Herod’s beheading of John the Baptizer. A story about listening and almost being changed. A story of clouded decisions and horrible consequences.
I did not have the bishops in mind, but I also did not not have the bishops in mind when I preached.
But I also had the whole church in mind. As we see Herod wanting to protect John, listening to him, revering him as holy.
Our Work Continues
The good news for us is that we get to keep doing what we’re already doing. We get some tweaks to our liturgy, expanded use, and the assurance that our values are growing. And there’s some unity in that.
And we know locally that we have a bishop already engaging in the very material of this new revision process. We’ll have the assurance that we will be supported in growing into our own maturity, our own sort of revision.
We get to continue doing our work, our liturgy: the work of the people. We get to make what we make. And this is a tremendous opportunity to live into all of the beauty of our church.
Hopefully then, at the end of the day, maybe we can see past this fog. And maybe we will all come to realize that we can’t solve division by doing what we did yesterday or by enforcing a mandate of unity, but by risking engagement. That it takes listening.
Not just sharing opinions or assuming we know what others think. But listening to everybody with a stake in the process. And letting ourselves be moved.
And maybe we’ll prove how great our faithfulness and trust in the Spirit can be. Hopefully then the bishops will trust her too.