Today was another long day, we held an extra legislative session from 7-9pm in order to get more legislation processed. As of tonight General Convention has completed action on 175 resolutions and we have 194 more to go.

The most exciting work of the day was the election and confirmation of the new Presiding Bishop (PB), who will take office on November 1. For more information check out this articles from the Associate Press. In terms of what it felt like to be a part of the process I have to say that it felt joyful and invigorating. While I know who our PB is doesn’t really matter to most of the world, it matters a great deal to me and I feel blessed to have been a part of the process.

In addition to the affirmation of the PB election, The House of Deputies (HOD) elected many different people to many different positions including the Executive Council, Court of Review, the Joint Nominating Committee for the PB (yes for 9 years from now), the Trustees of the Church Pension Fund, and The Disciplinary Board for Bishops. These elections are important, but they took most of the day. In many cases we had to have 3 ballots before we had elected enough people. It wad quite tedious, especially because people are often not prepared so they need to spend time logging into the voting system, or flipping through their notes to figure out who they want to vote for, don’t get me started on how much time we wasted today.

Much of the evening was taken up by debate on four resolutions, D007, D013, D056, and A072. The first three resolutions were so important that we suspended the rules and went into what is known as a Special Order so that we could include a question and answer session for each resolution before debating them. Resolution D007 deals with the war in Gaza and in it we condemn the actions of Hamas in October 2023, call for the an immediate ceasefire and a settlement that establishes a lasting peace and a solution that ends the occupation of Palestinian territory. This resolution, met with the least amount of opposition from the HOD. D013 is where things began to get very interesting. In the original language of the resolution called for the Government of Israel to end its apartheid policies against the Palestinians. The bishops, who dealt with the resolution first, did not like this language, so they softened it. The committee who proposed the original decided to restore the language before bringing it to the HOD, and after much debate both for and against, we decided to send it back to the Bishops with the original language calling for the end of the Apartheid policies of the Israel Government. It is common for the House of Bishops (HOB) to be cautious with language and in many cases the HOD goes along with it, but in this case it was clear that we are not willing to bend on this. A conference committee will be meeting soon to work out final language with the House of Bishops and hopefully we will be able to reach an agreement. Resolution D056 originally called the actions of the Israel Government against the people who live in Gaza a genocide. The HOD was basically in agreement that the conflict reaches the definition of genocide and many wanted to restore the phrasing, but ultimately it was decided to use the softer language that urges “prayers that the conflict not end in genocide”. This was some of the fiercest debate I have heard yet and while I did support the stronger language and voted for its restoration I think that wisdom won the day. Since we are pushing back on the apartheid language it makes sense to not press out luck with the genocide language. The hope is that the HOBs will give in since we gave in on genocide.

Resolution A072 met with great debate. It was the second reading of a Constitutional Amendment that replaces the existing Article X with a new one. Articles X is The Book of Common Prayer (BCP). Under the old Article X the BCP is not defined beyond the phrase “as now established or hereafter amended”, but under the new Article X, which was adopted and is now in place, says:

The Book of Common Prayer is understood to be those liturgical forms and other texts authorized by the General Convention in accordance with this article and the Canons of this Church.

The Book of Common Prayer in this Church is intended to be communal and devotional prayer enriched by our church’s cultural, geographical, and linguistic contexts. The Book of Common Prayer shall contain both public worship and private devotion.

The Book of Common Prayer, as now established or hereafter amended by the General Convention, shall be in use in all the Dioceses of this Church.

What this means is that any liturgy authorized by General Convention is considered a part of the BCP. This was a hotly debated resolution. Many people spoke against it believing it is not necessary, though I found their arguments to be mediocre at best. I felt that their goal was to cling to the past instead of making room for the future. I love many things about the 1979 BCP, it is familiar to me and comforting in many ways; but it is also no longer who we are as a church and we need to make room for growth. The adoption of resolution A072 does not take anything away from the 1979 BCP, it only seeks to expand it. What truly defines the BCP is the common forms of worship, not the words that we use when we pray. For example, the eucharist we had this morning was done in Spanish and while I had no idea what soever what was being said, I still felt the rhythm of the liturgy and felt spiritually fed. Which is a sign that the language doesn’t matter as much as the familiarity of the forms of worship.

You might be wondering how we have completed so many resolutions when it sounds like we spend a ton of time debating. Well that is because of the wonderful invention of the consent calendar. Twice a day we vote on a consent calendar, which means we vote to agree with the recommendation of the committee who placed an item on it without debate. So if they say to reject it we do so, or they say concur with the bishops we do so. What this does is it allows us to pass items that don’t require discussion all at once. There are many ways to take items off the consent calendar and it is done all the time.

The last thing for today is HOD rule 12.D.5.3, which is an even better invention than the consent calendar. Under this rule, once three deputies have stood and spoken in support of a resolution, and there are none waiting to speak against it then debate is automatically ended and we proceed directly to a vote. This means some people don’t get to speak in favor, but the point is that we don’t need to waste time hearing why a resolution is great when it is clear it is probably going to pass anyway.