We have not totally answered that question and perhaps we never will. The answers are as varied as just about any question in the Episcopal Church, but as is usually the case we did find more questions. One that came up for me in this was, "what does it mean to be a diocese now?" The point of it all, in the end, is to be connected, one to another, in some cosmic, spiritual, way. And I find myself wondering just how much of a reality there is in that. Let's be clear, on the face of it, the usual first response I get is that a diocese is a necessary nuisance. People tend to have to spend a bit more time finding what they might consider good and helpful to them. And part of the problem with that to me, is our semantics around this discussion. After being steeped in this for nearly 6 years, I am of the opinion that most people using the word "diocese", in conversation with me, are really talking about "the Office of the Bishop" which is the administrative offices of the diocese, not "the" diocese. This is not a newly discovered problem, but I think it might be one we need to pay attention to as we try to be more who we are, and try to share that being with those who do not know us.
I have also found that those that are truly connected and working with others from across the diocese are more readily able to answer what the "good" of it is. In other words, the more connected with others, the more clarity about the need and relevance of the diocese.
We, every one of us who claims the Episcopal Church, either through baptism or choice, is part of the diocese, you could even say IS the diocese. So, when you hear someone say, "I wish the diocese would do this or that" it is like saying "I wish I would do this or that." But when you say, "I wish the Office of Bishop" would do this or that, it usually is far more honest and makes a lot more sense! And, I believe, it helps us get out of a hang up in some of our conversations which keep us at a very elementary level in it, and also leaves us talking at cross purposes. In short, it leaves us with the real question, what SHOULD a diocese be? Our group is still working on the answer to that one, but I think we have gotten closer to one truth in it, it is all of us, it needs to be all of us, and we are stronger because it is all of us.
Now, the big question, how do we use that to share the truly Good News of Jesus Christ?
Greg+
I'm skeptical of the gloss of 'diocese' to 'Office of [the] Bishop'. I can understand how it might seem that way from the perspective of a Bishop who views their office as being the 'administrative offices of the diocese', but I think that takes as axiomatic an answer to another unasked question, which is: what is a Bishop for?
ReplyDeleteA Bishop is not just an administrator. If the episcopate just did administration there would be no point in having it, we could organize committees (and we do) and hire professional administrators (and we do) to accomplish specific administrative tasks. A Bishop administrates some, yes, but because that is necessary in the service of other roles.
The Bishop serves at the interface between the Diocese and the national church (maybe even the church universal), yes? And so some of the Bishop's roles face into the Diocese, some face to the national church, and some are in the liminal space between the two. There you can construct a sense of Bishop as chief pastor of the Diocese, and certainly a pastor is very different to an administrator. And you can construct the role of Bishop as one who serves in the House of Bishops, and helps lead (note: not just administer, but lead) the national church.
I do not think you have forgotten any of that, but it is curiously-absent from the conception of a Bishop's role in the above, which in turn informs any discussion of what a diocese is or ought to be from the perspective of a Bishop. And: like others in Holy Orders, the Bishop's role is in no small part to be a public minister in their particular role. Priests and Deacons are called to be visible signs of the Church in community; a Bishop's role is harder: to also be a visible sign of the Diocese, and not merely the church universal.
This is harder because it is easy to represent the Church's values and presence through word, symbol and action in the broader community. By being visible in clerical garb, or by speaking out about particular issues peculiar to the local community, or which the Church or perhaps even just the local congregation have strong feelings about. A Bishop is in the unfortunate position of having to do the same for a much larger group of people, across a much larger area, who may seem to hold less in common. And yet, there is some distinctive character of a Diocese, and is something held in common.
There is a matter of scale involved that is difficult for dioceses. It is comparatively-easy to recognize a problem in a local community or a congregation and to preach or teach about it. If people come to you asking when the Diocese is going to do something, it is because they are looking for some leadership which has been absent. And in some cases, perhaps it should be, but in others it may be because they have no other way to hope that their concerns will be heard, their hopes realized.
A Diocese is a beautiful way to unite the Church by way of breaking it up into unmanageable-yet-somehow-manageable chunks which together will live and work and act to make the world a little more like the Kingdom. That calls for extraordinary leadership, to lift up voices which must be hard, to make seen that which has been hidden from a great many people, to care for an unimaginable crowd of people, with conflicting needs, wants, hopes, dreams, desires and pains. You do all of that, and I would hope to see that somehow reflected in your estimation of what it is that the Office of the Bishop does, is, and is for.
The Diocese is how we enact the Church together at scale. The Bishop is given the authority to make that possible, and the responsibility, too. Hierarchies let us break down very hard problems into still-hard problems which we can nonetheless tackle together. Some things we can address person-to-person, some things in the congregation, some things in the wider community, some things in a diocese, and so on.
(Continued...)
(In conclusion...)
ReplyDeleteYes, it is always people who do things, and never really dioceses or offices, but few people would dare to imagine that they could ever speak with so loud a voice as is required to address even another person, or a congregation, or a community writ large, let alone a diocese. And so we empower others to take on that impossible task, and ask them to take advice from us, and consent to make our concerns heard, whether by lifting us up, or by their own speech.
To say that the Diocese really just needs to be distributed among us all I think loses or misses some of that; perhaps intentionally, as it is certainly not very popular to imagine that there is power at the top. But there is still some power; no one in the Diocese is the ecclesiastical authority but the Bishop, so long as the Bishop is seated, and that means something; no one else speaks as a public representative of the whole Diocese in quite the same way. If you attempt to distribute the power of the Diocese, or even the Office of the Bishop, you are effectively saying that you are satisfied with other power structures in society. That those who speaking as individuals are most likely to be heard are those who are most fit to represent the Church. Positions of privilege and power throughout society become more powerful when we give up the countercultural forces within the Church which allow us to subvert privilege and power structures.
Should the Diocese be more defined by the privileged voices within, simply because those people are more likely to feel comfortable to speak up and are more likely to be heard? Or should we construct some sense of Diocese by which we can say that the Diocese — our Diocese — stands with all minorities, all the oppressed? We cannot share the Good News simply by deferring society's usual way of doing things.
I grew up in a Christian tradition without any sort of diocesan system. It was difficult to see any connection with any other congregation or church body. This made for various difficulties such as:
ReplyDelete1) people were constantly checking up on each other's "faith statements" or "statements of belief" in order to test for compatibility and trust. The whole process felt rather subjective and paranoid.
2) We, the individuals and the congregations, were all rather oblivious of each other, our successes, challenges, needs, and resources. We kept clamoring for the (Pauline) Church of Acts, who shared leaders and resources, but our own refusal to organize well was constantly in the way.
I do think (and this is my own opinion only) a number of us in Dio Olympia congregations don't have a sense of any "bonds of affection" in diocese, just bonds of administration. It seems that "affection" takes time, and many feel they are in short supply of that already. If a person is an active communicant, their congregation usually gets the lion's share of their time and effort. The diocese is more of an afterthought, necessary but also impertinent. And I think you might be on to something here, namely that the diocese is not personal to many people, that it is more like a corporate entity.
As a result of my own experiences, however, I very much appreciate what we DO have in the sense of diocesan identity, relationship and structure. I much prefer the challenges of being a diocese, than being without one! I prefer the difficulties and rewards of community, to the difficulties and rewards of independent solitude.
And so here is what I am now pondering: What would happen if the Bishop's office made one its missional foci to connect small groups of parishes in mission, worship, and/or fellowship with each other on a semi-annual basis? Would that begin to change our perceptions by putting personal faces on our heretofore impersonal concept of 'the diocese'? How would that impact our mission and ministries together? ...
Thank you both for your very thoughtful and thought-provoking responses. We are aware of, and struggling with, the nature of privilege and position (as you can probably see from some of our other posts). We have also talked about how people feel associated with "the diocese" and the nature of that relationship. Thank you both for adding to that conversation.
ReplyDeleteI am a small cog in the Episcopal church and have not been particularly involved. But I like and attend the Episcopal church for several reasons: it does not demand absolute allegiance to all its dogma; it seems to genuinely care about its parishioners and it tackles sometimes controversial topics. Having said that, parishioners and clergy are human beings and prone to all the typical ego characteristics. And everyone has a different opinion on even rather trivial decisions which quickly evolves into contentiousness. Sometimes the arguments remind me of the scholastic argument regarding how many angels sit on the head of a pin. Ideally a diocese should be a welcoming home with a sense of community and I am sure that some manage to do this. God is love and some dioceses understand this better than others.
ReplyDelete