To repent or regret: Is THAT the question?

Legislative Day II: Wednesday 061306

The First Hearing – Resolutions A 160-163

It was a very, very long day and an even longer evening. Seventy four people testified between the hours of 7:30 – 10:00 PM to a packed ballroom which sat 1,500 people – with another hundred or so more waiting outside the door.

I was keeping careful count: Of the 74 visitors, alternates, deputies, and bishops who gave testimony this evening, approximately 4 were “neutral” – they thought the wording of the Special Committee was an accurate reflection of where they thought we should be in terms of our faithful response to The Windsor Report.

Thirty people thought we needed “clarity,” “honesty,” – and that the resolutions neither gave that nor were true to the “compliance” requested or required of The Windsor Report.

(Note: I will never, EVER for the life of me understand the word “compliance” vis-à-vis The Windsor Report – which is simply an invitation to a deeper dialogue about the nature of our membership in the World Wide Anglican Communion (WWAC)which is NOT - I repeat NOT - a legal document).

Another forty people thought that we ought not “repent,” and that we ought not have any moratoria on the election and consecration of LGBT bishops or authorize blessings for same sex relationships.

There was a terrible confusion over the sign up sheets for testimony – it really did not help to have incompetence in times of high anxiety. My grandmother's wisdom again proved instructive: A little bit of power in the wrong hands can result in great damage. I couldn't even get permission to leave the ballroom in order to go to the bathroom. It was unbeliveable!

After a day which included a 90 minute fiasco on the floor of General Convention trying to work out the glitches of the electronic voting gizmo's we are using, more incompetence in the face of the high anxiety of the Hearings on the Special Committee (#26) to deal with The Windsor Report was neither welcomed nor wise.

Remind me to tell you about the faux-pas and double entendre that happened when a deputy rose to the microphone to report about his electronic voting machine, which he refered to as his "do-hickey," was broken.

The new President of the House of Deputies, Bonnie Anderson, then requested that he bring his "do-hickey to the podium to be checked, at which point the entire floor of of convention burst into laughter.

It was one of those moments when I knew Shekinah was in the house.

I complained about the mix up to Frank Wade, chair of the committee, who seemed genuinely distressed. In the end, my sign-up was, it was announced, “inadvertently overlooked,” so I was allowed to have the last word – of the evening, at least.

Here’s the full text of what I said:

Regarding Resolution A160: It seems to have come down to this:

Shall we “repent” or express our “regret”?

I have been struggling with this. If we choose to “repent”

• I believe we reveal the real issue of this tension in our church. It is not scripture. Neither is it homosexuality. It is this: power and authority.

• This places us on a very “slippery slope” of beginning to build a magisterium – a centralized ‘curia’ – which is highly ironic. This is precisely what we were trying to avoid the first time we attempted a Reformation

• Does the term, “no foreign rule” strike a familiar note?



If we choose to “repent” we reveal our own high anxiety

• High anxiety distorts our perception. And, as that wise aphorism reminds us: perception is reality and reality is truth.

• High anxiety increases our need for structure – which always comes at the cost of our freedom. One only need look to our government for examples of this. Our fear about terrorism has resulted in the Patriot Act, the xenophobia of the Immigration Reform Act, and unauthorized wire tapping on American citizens.



To “repent” means we did something wrong.

• We did not.

• We did not enter into the election, confirmation or consecration of the Bishop of NH lightly or unadvisedly, but deliberately, reverently and in accordance with the purpose for which it was instituted by the church.

• No laws were broken – neither civil nor canonical.

• While I am deeply grieved that so many around the Anglican Communion are upset and distressed, that does not tarnish the integrity of our actions.


To “repent” means we did something new.

• We did not.

• Gene Robinson is not the first gay bishop. He is the first honestly gay bishop. He won’t be the last.



To “repent” means that we have broken communion.

• We did not.

• Indeed, we have been in broken communion for more than thirty years over the ordination of women.

• Our greater sin is that we won’t elect the one bishop as Presiding Bishop who is far and away the most qualified to be our next Presiding Bishop because she is a woman and that would “further impair” our already broken communion.


So, we face a dilemma – The Windsor Report asks us to repent. All we can offer is regret.

I have an alternative suggestion: I believe we should call a moratorium on any further decisions regarding the requests of The Windsor Report until we can determine whether we need to repent or express regret.

Thank you.

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