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General Convention: An Exercise in Practicing Theology
reflections from Ellen K. Wondra, Editor in Chief
 When the 78th General Convention of the Episcopal Church convenes on June 25, those gathered will meet, discuss, debate, and act on any number of legislative matters. Three major issues for Convention to wrestle with are: (1) (re)structuring the church for mission; (2) considering the Episcopal Church's understanding of marriage; and (3) selecting a new Presiding Bishop and passing the budget, which is crucial in implementing any decisions made by the Convention--and in not implementing them.
(1) Restructuring the Church for Mission
 Whatever one may think about the various components of the Report of the Task Force on Reimagining the Episcopal Church, along with the many responses, counter-proposals, and proposed resolutions, the simple fact that the Episcopal Church is looking seriously at restructuring is of great importance. It's a recognition that despite the church's official name--the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society--we may not be engaging God's mission as fully and as fruitfully as God's grace makes possible in our times. We may need to recognize that "new occasions teach new duties; time makes ancient good uncouth" (Harry Emerson Fosdick). What was highly effective mission once may not be effective now.
 While the church's basic identity and call as the body of Christ, the company of all faithful people, and the foretaste of God's fulfillment is not in question, what must always be asked is how, exactly, the church is to fulfill its call in this time and place. In the Episcopal Church and in the Anglican Church of Canada discerning a range of responses is a messy business, not easily engaged nor readily completed. It involves committees, task forces, studies, resolutions, debates, informal discussions, and votes, generally over an extended period of time, often with reconsiderations of things decided, revivals of proposals thought "dead," and even reversals of approach that can cause confusion or a sense that the church doesn't know its own "mind."
 As aggravating as all this may be at times, it is also an indication that Anglicanism in the United States and Canada is thoroughly synodal. That is, everyone has a chance to "walk together" in discerning God's mission and the church's part of it. Large numbers of diverse groups with varying interests have a chance to contribute to the church's understanding of its mission. Structures and processes that may appear distressingly bureaucratic are also a way of saying that every part of the body, no matter its apparent utility, is a necessary contributor to the whole.
 Further, the governance models of these two churches are a challenge to other parts of the Anglican Communion, just as more emphatically episcopal models challenge us. Although the Anglican Covenant may not be a matter of great concern at General Convention, it's worth remembering that a great part of the question of the cohesion of Anglican churches worldwide has to do not so much with the fact that the member Provinces are self-governing, but how they are self-governing. And of course this is an issue in many of our ecumenical relations locally and globally. However the General Convention proceeds with structuring the church for mission, the effects ripple out far beyond our own shores.
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| (2) The Goods of Marriage  The interaction of church and society is one of the things the discussion of marriage is about. What is the good of marriage, after all? And what is the church's role in fostering that good? Why are church and state entangled at precisely this point? What are the foreseeable ramifications for disentangling church from state-for mission as well as for ministry and pastoral care? These questions are raised not only by multiple states' decisions to allow legal marriage of LGBT persons, or the Episcopal Church's provisional authorization of the church's blessing of such unions, though these are so significant as to precipitate the larger discussion. Just as important are high divorce rates, domestic violence, and committed couples' lack of interest in marriage.
 In the midst of this discussion, it is worth remembering the fact that marriage--as a rite, as a manner of life--always pushes the tension between the ideal and the real, the aspirational and the actual. (The same must be said of any other rite and manner of life as well.) The Prayer Book says that marriage is a variety of things, but the evidence on the ground is far from compelling. No discussion, no debate, no revision of moral theology, canon law, or liturgy can erase this disparity. Perhaps that is one of the goods of marriage: confronting human beings in intimate settings with our frailty, vulnerability, and stubbornness even while fostering humility, self-offering, and receptivity toward others. On this, Rowan Williams' 1989 essay "The Body's Grace" is a particularly insightful discussion of this very possibility.
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Many articles from previous issues of the ATR are available online, and provide a rich resource for General Convention deputies. Especially pertinent at this time is a special pdf download of Bishop George Wayne Smith's essay,
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(3) Electing a Presiding Bishop, Passing a New Budget As for the other matters facing General Convention: electing a new Presiding Bishop and passing a new budget. Each of these is highly indicative of the extent to which the church is willing to practice what it passes. And the church's will is never singular here. The election of a Presiding Bishop is always a compromise, perhaps even a consensus, born of the need to reflect the desires, needs, and aspirations of as many parts of the body as feasible.
The process of nomination and election deliberately engages all participants in considering what kind of leadership and what kind of person the church as a body needs at this time. It is often a matter of putting the good of the whole ahead of personal preference, as well as a process in which the relation of particular persons to more abstract roles is especially prominent.  A budget is more abstract. And it more obviously reflects the church's conflicts, hesitations, and ambivalences, particularly in what it omits: the "unfunded mandates," the actions of General Convention that are hampered (at best) by the absence of the resources needed to carry them out. A budget is a theological document: it tells us what our priorities are, and what choices we are actually making about the church's mission, its identity, and its future. Of course mission and ministry are possible without funding from General Convention. Lack of funding or official sponsorship can, indeed, galvanize grassroots movements to organize, clarify, recruit, and engage in highly effective work, as has been the case with the Anglican Communion's Five Marks of Mission. This possibility does not resolve the ambiguity of the church's saying it supports something strongly even while it allocates few or no resources. It does, however, shed light on a different aspect of synodality: mission and advocacy beyond formal structures.
 General Convention is an exercise in practicing theology as well as gathering the tribe and thinking pragmatically and strategically. What does and does not happen at General Convention provides us with important indicators of how the church views itself ecclesiologically and theologically as well as functionally and strategically. Even after this General Convention is over, it will take time to discover what it all means.
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