Reporter's Notebook: 2006 Episcopal General Convention

It is Day Two of the 75^th General Convention of the Episcopal Church, and if this year’s triennial gathering is anything like 2003’s, there will be fireworks.

 

In anticipation, about 50 reporters from the Episcopal and secular media are gathered, an impressive display of technology spread before each one–laptops, tape recorders, microphones, Blackberries, cellphones, and PDAs galore.

 

But even the gymnastics of the latest computer gizmos couldn’t spice up the offerings the four Episcopal officials and the church’s director of communications had for the press this morning. A candidate for president was being nominated in the House of Deputies, one of the two governing bodies of the church. She was running unopposed. If another candidate came forward, they’d be sure and let us know.

 

Then the level of parsing and dissection Episcopalians are famous for was put on display when a good four or five minutes was spent discussing the definition and use of “direct” in a single statement brought before the House of Bishops, the other governing church body.

 

Most of the reporters working for secular media skeddadled.

Judging by the television cameras, this was the place to be–a press conference where Gene Robinson was scheduled to speak.

 

Yet Robinson is so average-looking, so normal, so plain that even in a roomful of reporters waiting to hang on every word he utters, he is able to walk in, sit down in their midst, and go unnoticed until he is announced.

 

When he steps up to the podium, he looks like an insurance salesman. Or an accountant. Or your dad.

 

But Gene Robinson is none of those things. With his dun-colored hair, large glasses, and slight frame, he is the center of a storm of controversy currently roiling not only the Episcopal Church but the United States at large–the acceptance of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered (LGBT) community.

 

The most conservative Episcopalians want their church to repent of consecrating Robinson and to refrain from consecrating any more homosexuals and blessing their unions. The most progressive members want a church that welcomes and affirms people of all lifestyles, even if it means letting go of their place in the worldwide Anglican Communion. In the middle are a whole lot of other Episcopalians who are agonizing about the right thing to do while remaining a part of the Anglican family and true to the teachings of Christ. 

 

There is about Robinson a kind of reserved tenseness. It is in the way he holds his mouth–down at the corners–and in the tightness of the lines about his eyes. He knows this convention will likely bring more conflict and controversy to the church body Episcopalians hold dear. You can see his concern reflected in the faces and bodies of the other Episcopalians gathered here. They have tight smiles and tight lips. No one really wants to talk about the possibility of schism. Instead, they wage a theological battle via colorful buttons that bear various slogans: “Reconciliation” says a purple one; “Love one another,” says another.

 

But as Robinson addresses the reporters, his voice picks up intensity and he seems to grow larger behind the podium that could almost hide him. “The conservative voices in our church are saying that at this very moment in the life of our church we are fighting for the soul of the church,” he says, reading from a sheet of paper. “The question is whether this will be a church about rules, about walls, about division, about schism, about threats, about violent language, or will this be a church about the all-inclusive love of God in which every, every baptized person will hear in his or her own heart what Jesus heard at his baptism–you are my beloved, in you I am well pleased.”

 

“And so we are fighting over the soul of this church, about whether this will be a church about God’s love for all of God’s children or something else, something from the past, something from which we should repent. It is a great moment to be here . . . “