Episcopalians Take a Flying Leap

In her closing sermon at the 77th Triennial General Convention of the Episcopal Church in Indianapolis this week, the Most Reverend Katharine Jefferts Schori invited the Church to “take a flying leap into the future!” It was perhaps an unfortunate Freudian misuse of a colloquialism that generally means something along the lines of “piss off,” which Jefferts Schori mixed with invitations to “step out there on this narrow ledge of safety”—images which, however much the denomination’s presiding bishop intended as encouragement to reach out to those on the margins of the Church and society, nonetheless spoke to what is seen by some as the continuing precariousness of a Church that was once at the very center of American spiritual and political life. Indeed, in a hyperbolic and largely inaccurate opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, Jay Akasie described Jefferts Schori as a “secretive and authoritative... potentate” leading the denomination over a cliff. Well, then…

As has been the case since women were granted unrestricted access to the full life of the Church in the 1970s, and through the long debates over the rights of lesbian and gay Episcopalians through the intervening years, controversy at this year’s General Convention centered primarily on resolutions related to sexuality, gender, and identity. At the center of this were resolutions ensuring access to all aspects of the Church for transgender persons (D002 and D019) and providing liturgical rites for the blessing of same-gender relationships (A049). No small number of commentators in both the blogosphere and conventional news organizations (however more thoughtful,and factual, they might have been than Akasie in presenting their opinions) were quick to link the passage of these resolutions to the continuing numerical decline of the Episcopal Church and Mainline Protestantism more generally.