Bishop of Maryland Reflects on Lambeth

Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

I continue to be profoundly moved and challenged by the encounters with my colleague bishops across the globe and theological spectrum at this Lambeth Conference. I’m proud to be representing the Diocese of Maryland in this time of unavoidable and rapid change in many parts of the world, in the Anglican Communion, and in the Episcopal Church. I want to share with you some of my experiences and thoughts.

Friday, August 1
Part Four
An Inclusive Church

The great struggle before us at this conference is defining what it means to be the Church, and how can we remain in communion with each other despite deep theological differences. The “Church”, of course, is the gathered “body of Christ” of all those who’ve heard God’s call to profess Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, and are committed to following the way of Jesus in manifesting the kingdom of God on earth. The Church, though, has always struggled with how to embrace all those who confess the faith of Christ but who differ in their understanding of what it means to follow Him in their particular contexts. This is where we are as the Diocese of Maryland, and this is where we are as Anglicans in a worldwide communion.

I have argued here strongly for inclusion, not excluding anyone of my brothers and sisters in Christ because of their differences. To be a Christian is not to give intellectual assent to a body of doctrine, no matter how passionately the institutional Church has held on to them. To be a Christian is to follow a living Christ who continues to lead us to places where we do not want to go, and calling us to love and embrace those whom we would rather be more like us in every way. The traditions of the Church ground us, but we cannot become slaves to tradition if they have caused us to limit the scope of the reach of Christ in our day. Such has been the unfortunate history of the Church whenever it has found itself on the wrong side of scientific revelations, and on the wrong side of using biblical and theological interpretations that have resulted in the subjugation of people who cry out for justice. Have we not been here before when the Church used Holy Scripture to justify human slavery? Of keeping women in their place? Of persecuting left-handed people? (I’m not kidding here…this was very common.) How many times must our children’s children have to apologize for the mistakes and oppressions their leaders in the faith have committed in the name of Christ?

Some of you may have heard that I have said these things on the floor of the bishop’s plenary sessions at Lambeth. Several conservative bishops – including many from Africa and the Global South – in response to my public call, have sought me out to initiate conversations about interpretation of Scripture from the perspective of an African American who has experienced first hand how people have been abused by well-meaning Christians who’ve justified their prejudice from church tradition and the Bible. I welcome all of these conversations, and look forward to having them throughout the diocese. We may never all agree on all of the issues before us, and we may not agree on what we believe are the essentials of the Christian faith, but there is one thing of which you should have no doubt: the Diocese of Maryland is an inclusive Church, and we will pray, worship, argue and work together, expressing our unity in Christ despite all our differences, for this is what God requires of us. In a world that increasingly knows only how to respond to conflict by dehumanizing, name-calling, destroying and violence, isn’t this good news?

Thursday, July 31
Part Three
The Importance of Communion

What becomes evident after spending many days with Christian leaders from around the world is that there are no purely local problems in the church; we need to think globally about issues. Everything we say and do locally has global impact, and global issues inevitably affect local situations.

Americans are amazingly insular in our thinking, much to the dismay of much of the world. Most bishops here speak at least two – sometimes five or six! – languages, but very few American bishops have ever learned any foreign language. Very few Americans are really aware of what is going on beyond their local communities, and fewer yet have traveled abroad or hold passports. This has resulted in a myopia – “shortsightedness” – about how our cultural patterns of thinking and behavior affect the rest of the world.

What this means for Episcopalians is that we really do need the Anglican Communion more than the AC needs us. Our brothers and sisters across the globe give us insights into the Christian faith that we need to appreciate, and if we were to travel this faith journey by ourselves we would be much impoverished. One of the early church fathers, Tertullian, once said, “A single Christian is no Christian.” Likewise, one local congregation, one diocese, or even one national church alone cannot express the fullness of what the Spirit is doing in the world.

I’ve been approached many times at this conference by foreign bishops seeking to have some sort of relationship with our diocese, since we are (accurately, in comparison to the vast majority of dioceses) perceived to be large, wealthy and diverse. Could it be that the Diocese of Maryland is being called to take on a greater, more prominent role in the Anglican Communion? What if we had an expectation that every single parish in our diocese were to take on some global initiative, relating to some other Anglican parish, diocese or entity overseas?

Wednesday, July 30
Canterbury Cathedral and a Day in London

Part One
Canterbury Cathedral

Last Sunday we had our first conference eucharist in this historic and majestic house of prayer, the Mother Church of the Anglican Communion. It’s history goes back to 597 A.D. when St. Augustine was sent here by Pope Gregory the Great as a missionary, and he established his “cathedra”, or bishop’s seat, in Canterbury in southeastern England. In 1170 Archbishop Thomas Becket was murdered in the Cathedral, and it’s been the destination of millions of pilgrims since his martyrdom in the 12th century. It’s an awe-inspiring sacred space, and I’m happy to say that I wore my bishop’s vestments of rochet and chimere for the very first time at this great Cathedral.

What’s particularly interesting for the Diocese of Maryland is a large plaque prominently displayed on a wall in the cloistered area that has the following words on it:

“In Memory of Thomas John Claggett, First Bishop of Maryland and First Bishop Consecrated in the United States of America; Chaplain of the United States Senate; A Direct Descendant of George Claggett, Three Times Mayor of Canterbury and Alderman of the City Between 1599 and 1638.”

I said a prayer for Bishop Claggett at that spot in thanksgiving for his ministry, and I prayed in thanksgiving for the honor of being one his successors in Maryland.

Part Two
An Unforgetable Day in London

On Thursday, July 24 the bishops traveled to London to demonstrate our commitment to the Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s) by marching in a “Walk of Witness” in support of eradicating extreme global poverty by the year 2015. It was an impressive sight to see hundreds of bishops in purple cassocks march through the center of London past the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, and other landmarks of government and finance to Lambeth Palace, the official residence and offices of the Archbishop of Canterbury. On the palace grounds there were speeches given by several ecumenical guests, including an impassioned speech thanking the Anglican Communion for its stands on economic justice given by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Gordon Brown. It struck me that it would be a wonderful thing if our Church were known more for its words and actions about love, mercy and justice than it does for its endless internal bickering about “who is in and who is out” of God’s favor and who is eligible for church leadership.

After a lunch in the expansive gardens at Lambeth, it was off to our Garden Tea Party hosted by Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace. As if meeting the head of the British government in the morning were not enough to impress us, it was an unimaginable treat for me to represent the Diocese of Maryland before Her Majesty on that sunny afternoon…that’s right, you read it correctly…Sonya and I had the high honor of being one of the few chosen to have a conversation for a few minutes with the Royal Crown. She is not only the Head of State in the UK, but also Head of the Church of England, and it was in that capacity that the Archbishop of Canterbury introduced the Bishop of Maryland and his wife to the Queen of England! He had properly briefed her that I was the first African American bishop elected in Maryland, a state that had practiced slavery, and she asked me about that and the present state of the church in the Diocese in our brief conversation. Without revealing all that we chatted about (I am a gentleman, after all, who wouldn’t dream of tattling on his new best friend!), I can say that she is an utterly delightful woman who knows how to make small talk!