Albany Via Media

Albany's 142nd Diocesan Convention has come and gone, leaving the few AVM-ers who attended it with a familiar feeling of having spent the weekend on a strange planet. Coached by three purple shirts — Bishop Love, retired Archbishop Drexel Gomez (head of the Covenant Design Group), and Archbishop Rowan Williams (via recording) — the Convention endorsed the Covenant by a vote of 314 to 76.

Was discussion of the Covenant belated and inadequate? Yes. Was the parade of bishops coercive? Again, yes. However, the very wide margin of the vote makes it clear that the result represents the will of those present in that place and at that time.

How accurately it reflects sentiment in the pews is less clear. When, a few years ago, a businesslike one-day meeting in the see city morphed into a three day “family reunion” (Bp. Love's description) in the Adirondack woods, Convention lost much of its appeal for moderate and liberal Episcopalians. A parade of TEC-averse visiting speakers (e.g. +Nazir-Ali and ++Gomez) has added to a sense that Albany's Convention is of, by, and for conservatives. It is hard to fault the many moderates and liberals who stay home, but their absence obviously skews the electorate to the right.

A three day stay at Camp of the Woods is also expensive: Sending a priest and three lay deputies for three days costs about $1000, more than many parishes can afford in hard times. Not every church has deputies who will pay their own way, so it is not surprising that some 30 parishes passed up Convention this year.

Two years ago, AVM supported a resolution to shorten Convention and return it to Albany. Bishop Love ruled it out of order, unwisely in our view. Every Albany Episcopalian is taxed for Convention, and decisions made there affect every one of us. Hence discussion of its time, location, and format is not only in order but overdue. The Windsor Report, which has almost scriptural status with conservative-evangelicals, counsels that “What affects all should be decided by all.”

Amen to that!

The AVM Board
July 28, 2010