"But I Thought You Said This Was a Hierarchy!"

Here are some fundamental preachings from 815 and its allies:

The General Convention - with its House of Bishops and House of Clerical and Lay Deputies - represents the highest authority within the Church. . . .

The authority of the General Convention is the center of the hierarchical nature of The Episcopal Church. Its authority gives unity and leadership to the Church and its mission.

--Prof. Robert Bruce Mullin, Affidavit filed in support of ECUSA in Ft. Worth Litigation

As the highest legislative authority of The Episcopal Church, the General Convention is the body that will ultimately decide The Episcopal Church’s position . . .

-- Executive Council of ECUSA, A Response to Resolution ACC-14

The General Convention holds all authority in The Episcopal Church . . .

-- Bonnie Anderson, President, House of Deputies, in her speech opening GC 2009. See also this quote to the press, before GC 2009 opened:

Anderson pointed out the importance of General Convention to the church. "All other positions and bodies in the Episcopal Church derive their authority from General Convention," she said.

And the clergy chime in, as well:

The highest authority in the Episcopal Church, for example, is the General Convention, and the chief prelate is the Presiding Bishop.

--The Rev. Walt Zelley (ret.), Diocese of New Jersey

The General Convention is superior to any given individual diocese, and establishes laws that limit what the dioceses can do.

--The Rev. Tobias Haller, Diocese of New York


Even the Encyclopedia Britannica has joined the chorus (note, however, the factual error in the statement):

The highest authority in the church is the General Convention, which is headed by the presiding bishop (elected by the House of Bishops).

And here is an enactment by the "highest authority" within the Episcopal Church (USA), binding on the Church "at all levels":

Resolution Number: 2003-A130
Title: Support the Establishment of a Living Wage
Legislative Action Taken: Concurred as Amended
Final Text:

Resolved, That the 74th General Convention of The Episcopal Church, through the Secretary of the Convention, call upon the President of the United States and members of Congress to establish a living wage including health benefits as the standard of compensation for all workers in the United States; and be it further

Resolved, That it is the policy of The Episcopal Church and its dioceses and congregations to provide employees with a living wage including health benefits and be a model for ethical labor practices; and be it further

Resolved, That it is the policy of The Episcopal Church to insist that companies in which the Church invests or with which it contracts provide their employees with a living wage and serve as a model for ethical labor practices; and be it further

Resolved, That the 74th General Convention continue to support living wage campaigns in the cities and counties of every diocese; and be it further

Resolved, That the 74th General Convention strongly affirm the right of workers to organize as protected by federal and state law especially in low wage industries and businesses and including the institutions of every diocese.

Not content with that, the same "highest authority" within the Episcopal Church passed a similar enactment three years later, to wit:

Resolution Number: 2006-D047
Title: Support Worker Unions and a Living Wage
Legislative Action Taken: Concurred as Amended
Final Text:

Resolved, That the 75th General Convention support actively the right of workers to form a union, and increase the support in our cities and states for passage of “living wage” legislation; and be it further

Resolved, That the Convention commit the Church at all levels to contract solely with union hotels in its meetings, or to obtain confirmation that local prevailing “living wages” are paid by all hotels the Church uses; and be it further

Resolved, That the 75th General Convention strongly urge the Church Center staff and especially the General Convention Planning Office to assure that dioceses that host events of The Episcopal Church comply with GC2003-A130 and provide a living wage for their employees . . .

And at its latest session, the "highest authority" of the Episcopal Church (USA) passed not one, but two binding enactments on the subject of fair wages for common laborers. First was this:

Resolution: C083
Title: Support for Day Laborers
Topic: Labor
Committee: 10 - Social and Urban Affairs

House of Initial Action: Bishops
Legislative Action Taken: Concurred
Proposer: Diocese of Virginia

Resolved, the House of Deputies concurring, That the 76th General Convention commend the actions of elected officials and community leaders who have established and are establishing sites at which day laborers are treated fairly and in a manner which befits their communities; and be it further

Resolved, That the General Convention call upon the dioceses of the Episcopal Church to recognize and support these efforts and those involved in endeavoring to create a just environment for day-labor employment.

And next came this -- a measure which may be fairly said to have crowned nine years of advocating "social justice" for union laborers:

Resolution: D039
Title: Fix Our Broken Labor Laws
Topic: Labor
Committee: 09 - National and International Concerns
House of Initial Action: Deputies

Legislative Action Taken: Concurred
Proposer: The Rev. William E. Exner

Resolved, the House of Bishops concurring, That the 76th General Convention of the Episcopal Church urge the Congress of the United States to pass, and the President to sign into law, labor law reform legislation designed to better protect employees seeking to engage in collective bargaining, to simplify and streamline the procedures by which employees may choose to organize, and to assist employers and employees in reaching agreement. Said legislation should contain the following elements:

1. Provide workers the choice of seeking union recognition either through an election, or through a majority sign-up on cards which are then verified by the National Labor Relations Board.

2. Adopt more effective remedies for violations of employees' rights, comparable to the remedies for discrimination provided by existing civil rights laws.

3. Where the employers and unions are unable to reach agreement on their first collective bargaining agreement within a reasonable period of time, resolve the dispute by submitting it to mediation and if mediation is unsuccessful, then to binding arbitration; and be it further

Resolved, That church members and the Office of Government Relations communicate the position of the Episcopal Church on this issue to the President and Members of Congress, and advocate passage of federal legislation consistent with this Resolution.

In justification of this last resolution, the following explanation was offered:

The Episcopal Church supports the right of workers to organize unions and to bargain collectively for better wages, hours and working conditions. The Executive Council in 1991 expressed alarm at reprisals taken against workers who seek to organize union, issuing the following statement:

"The Executive Council deplores reprisals taken against workers who exercise their rights to initiate collective bargaining as protected by federal and state statutes; calls upon corporate and business leaders to respect the letter and the spirit of the National Labor Relations Act; supports all working Americans, whether organized into unions or not, in the struggle to restore fairness in the workplace; and calls upon our congregation and local communities to reach out to working people who have been denied their jobs, their respect and their livelihoods, joining with them in their struggle for justice and fair compensation."

Well, how does this "hierarchical relationship", with General Convention acting to bind all the other levels of the Church, work out in practice? The following news item may serve to enlighten you:

They worked for years cleaning and maintaining the Episcopal Church Center in midtown Manhattan. But after they were fired on Dec. 30, nine hard-working people are in desperate need of divine intervention.

"We came to work on Dec. 30 as every day, hoping to leave a little earlier to celebrate the new year," said Bronx native Héctor Miranda, a father of three. "But when we got to the building we were told that we no longer worked there. Just like that. They picked the date well to fire us."

Now, without the means to support his family, Miranda has no idea how he will pay the rent.

"Even worse," he said, "without health coverage I don't know how I am going to pay for my wife's treatment. She is a diabetic, you know."

The workers lost their jobs - which paid standard wages and benefits - when the church canceled the contract with Paris Maintenance, a union cleaning contractor, and replaced it with the nonunion Benjamin Enterprises.

My, oh my -- what a resounding demonstration of the sincerity of the Episcopal Church (USA), and the diligence with which it adheres to resolutions of its "highest authority", at all levels. What a convincing message to send to the President and Members of Congress about how the Episcopal Church stands behind its words, and backs them up with action -- whenever the constraints of maintaining some fifty lawsuits across the country, to preserve the legacy of the Church intact for future generations, do not get in the way.

In fact, the sincerity of the Episcopal Church (USA) on this subject was so great just last summer that deputies to the General Convention at Anaheim marched on Disneyland to carry the following message:

Episcopalians attending General Convention linked arms with hotel workers July 14 to march to the gates of Disneyland to demand economic justice for 2,300 Disney employees . . .

"It seems to me, as our church has moved toward a position of justice for all its members, particularly in the area of health care, this is the perfect opportunity for the church to witness to the world about its convictions regarding economic justice," said the Rev. Lisa Hackney, from the Diocese of Ohio. . .

. . .
A letter in support of Disney workers signed by 13 Episcopal bishops said they were taking seriously "our call to stand with the poor and those who are suffering from injustice." The protest included Episcopal bishops Greg Rickel (Olympia), Gene Robinson (New Hampshire) and Barbara Harris (retired of Massachusetts).

Henry Atkins Jr., of the Episcopal Church Peace and Justice Commission of the Diocese of Los Angeles, is asking Episcopalians to boycott Disney hotels if the workers ask.

"We're now marching with these people who are working for Disney for their rights, their privileges that they deserve as human beings," said Bishop Bruno. "We ask you to let us turn the eyes of Disney toward justice and mercy; toward benefits, and the things necessary for people to live a just and abundant life."

But those noble sentiments did not apply last week to people who worked for 815 itself:

Last Thursday, more than 100 people gathered in front of the church to support the workers and ask church officials to help them get their jobs back.

"They [church officials] just looked out the windows," said Colombian-born Andrea Saavedra, 32, who worked at the church building for two years and 16 for Paris Maintenance.

For the Church's official spokespersons, no explanation was necessary. The Church was just carrying on business as usual:

"It needs to be clear that looking for a new contract is a normal business procedure," said church spokeswoman Neva Rae Fox.
. . .

Linda Watts, chief operating officer of the Episcopal Church, put out an official statement: "Budget constraints have prompted The Episcopal Church to review all contracts and to implement cost-cutting measures where possible," she said. No mention of the plight of the nine men and women thrown out to the streets or of lending them a helping hand.

Ah, but this is a church, remember -- and a hierarchical one, at that. So not to worry -- there was some official recognition of the policies laid down by the past three General Conventions. For look what the fired workers found when they showed up for what turned out to be their last day on the job:

"Good luck, we wish you all the best," read the note the workers found in their lockers on Dec. 30.

And that is how a true "hierarchy" operates: the ones at the top, you see, are all for anything that keeps them there; those at the bottom are fully expendable -- especially when it comes to having to pay those expensive attorneys to maintain all those nasty lawsuits against dioceses and parishes, and their bishops, clergy and vestries, across all this wide country.

Hypocrisy? Perish the thought: it's just a matter of priorities -- as determined by a true hierarchy.

Two Papers from the ACI Hierarchy Conference

No doubt the news will be eclipsed by Superbowl celebrations (and recriminations), but I just have time to point out to regular readers of this blog two important new papers published by the Anglican Communion Institute. These were delivered at their recent conference held in Dallas on the subject of "Who's in Charge? Hierarchy and the Episcopal Church", which I was fortunate in being able to attend. (Tomorrow I head off to another conference, so blogging this week will be lighter than usual.)

The first paper was given by Mark McCall, who has studied the roots of ECUSA's governing documents and polity as much as any person now alive, and whose scholarship puts Dr. Bruce Mullin's to shame. Contrast Dr. Mullin's declaration in the Fort Worth litigation (which I discussed briefly in this post and this one) with the analysis by Mark McCall, now posted at the ACI Website. Let me show you what I mean. Here is a passage from Dr. Mullin's affidavit:

34. The goal and outcome of the organizational period of The Episcopal Church was the creation of a national church with an authoritative General Convention. Only such an organization could assure a united Church and the reception of the episcopate from the Church of England.

A. Development of the General Convention

35. The hierarchical nature of The Episcopal Church was clear from the very beginning of its organization in the decade of the 1780s. The norm in Anglicanism, as shown above, has always been the national Church -- i.e., a church representing the communicants of a sovereign state. With the independence of the American colonies from Britain in 1783, such a church became the goal of American Episcopalians. . . .

And here is Mark McCall speaking:

Sitting as judge in 1784, [James] Duane ruled in a well-known case still studied by legal scholars that the absence of a routine technical term indicating hierarchical priority substantially eviscerated a New York statute purporting to nullify part of the peace treaty that ended the Revolutionary War. Six weeks later Duane was a delegate to the first interstate convention that established the fundamental principles of what was to become the constitution of The Episcopal Church. The first of these principles was the very language, that “there be a general convention,” that remains to this day the only specification of the authority of General Convention. Duane was again a delegate to the General Convention in 1785, one of only two from New York, and served on the committee that drafted the first constitution. That constitution, the key language of which remains virtually unchanged in the current constitution, contained no language giving hierarchical priority to the General Convention. Duane was once again a delegate to the 1786 Convention that revised the draft constitution.

[John] Jay is known among legal scholars for his work in drafting the hierarchical legal language that resolved the treaty nullification controversy with Great Britain and that became the prototype for the Supremacy Clause in the United States Constitution, the primary provision establishing the hierarchy of the federal government in our federal system. Right in the middle of this work on the treaty controversy, Jay was a delegate to the General Convention in June 1786. It was this Convention that amended and then approved the constitution drafted the year before containing no language giving hierarchical priority to the General Convention or any central body. . . . He did not attend the adjourned session of the Convention in October 1786, undoubtedly because it occurred just as he was delivering his report to Congress with his proposed solution to the treaty crisis, including resolutions containing the legal language that would later be incorporated into the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution.

It is inconceivable that these two knowledgeable lawyers, known to this day for their role in developing our jurisprudence concerning legal hierarchy, would have inadvertently drafted a TEC constitution devoid of hierarchical language.

Indeed, the more I focus on Dr. Mullin's assertions, the more claims I discover which are simply contrary to fact. Let me show you again what I mean, with a very simple and direct illustration. Toward the end of paragraph 35, whose opening I quoted above, Professor Mullin makes this assertion, in speaking of the blueprint for the national Church published in 1782 by the Rev. Dr. William White of Philadelphia (see this earlier post for background):

White's organizational plan was laid out in The Case of the Episcopal Churches Considered (1782). Significantly, under White's Case, no ultimate rights were reserved for states or dioceses. [Footnote omitted; emphasis added.]

Now look at what Dr. White actually proposed, as part of his founding principles for organizing the Church:

One natural consequence of this distinction [between England and the United States], will be to retain in each [local] church every power that need not be delegated for the good of the whole. Another, will be an equality of the churches; and not, as in England, the subjection of all parish churches to their respective cathedrals.
. . .

The continental representative body [i.e., the Church's general legislature] may consist of a convenient number from each of the larger districts, formed equally of clergy and laity, and among the clergy, formed equally of presiding ministers and others; to meet statedly once in three years. The use of this and the preceding representative bodies is to make such regulations, and receive appeals in such matters only, as shall be judged necessary for their continuing one religious communion.

(Emphasis again added.) And in case one did not get the message, the Rev. Dr. White sums up what he is proposing as the philosophy of the proposed national church in the following quotation:

On the subject of government, whether civil or ecclesiastical, there is great truth and beauty in the following observation of the present Bishop of St. Asaph, “the great art of governing consists in not governing too much.”

[Historical note: the "present Bishop of St. Asaph", whom Dr. White quotes, was Jonathan Shipley, who held that post from 1769 to 1789. He was a great friend of Benjamin Franklin, and was the only member of Parliament to voice his opposition to the punitive measures enacted following the (original) Boston Tea Party.]

Can you see why I maintain that Dr. Mullin's entire hypothesis about the founding of the national Church is preposterous, and without any basis in actual fact? A detailed comparison of his affidavit with Mark McCall's current paper should convince any impartial reader as to who is more careful in assessing the historical facts, and who is constructing a case for court because he is being paid to do so.

The second paper published at the ACI Website is a very thoughtful rumination on the proposal for an Anglican Covenant, delivered by the Rev. Dr. Philip Turner: "Communion, Order and Dissent, or - the Revenge of Puss-in-Boots." He employs a new terminology to refer to the contending factions within the Communion, and describes the final Ridley Draft as a proposal for "thick" communion, while those opposed seem to be advocating a version which (by contrast only) he calls "thin" communion. The former involves the detailed structures and mutual relationships spelled out in the proposed Covenant; the latter emphasizes the autonomy of each of the member churches, in which there is a minimal attempt at agreeing on details held in common beyond those of the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral.

Dr. Turner's paper attempts -- very successfully, in my view -- to give a non-polemic assessment of what is currently dividing minds about the proposed Covenant, and about what would be the ramifications of each of the two contending views for the Communion as a whole. I commend it to your careful attention, and will have more to say about it in a later post.

Friday TED Talk: Michael Pollan - A Plant's-Eye View

Michael Pollan, the author of The Botany of Desire, as well as The Omnivore's Dilemma, and In Defense of Food, shows in the following TED talk what the world (and agriculture in particular) would look like from the point of view of plants. Imagine, for example, if we humans were all just pawns in corn's master strategy to rule the earth by making us dependent on ethanol -- consciousness is not the only thing that has evolved to enable survival, and the plants have been going at it for much longer than we have. From the 2007 TED Conference:








You can read more about Michael Pollan here, and this is a link to his Website (with a description of his newest book, Food Rules). You may watch this talk in its high-res version from this link, and download the talk in that and other formats from this page.