Diocesan Convention

Friday night mass at Grace Cathedral

It was a beautiful weekend in the Bay Area, and I spent it indoors. Every October members of 108 Episcopal churches in Northern California gather at Grace Cathedral for the Diocesan Convention.

Prayers are said, reports are presented, resolutions are made, and officers are elected. Given all the business that had to be conducted---the Diocese has 162 years of legal and procedural barnacles encrusting its activities---it was remarkable that we completed the agenda within the allotted nine hours.

Bay Area attendance has dwindled to a weekly average of 8,500 Bay Area worshipers. Bishop Marc called for renewal--we dare not call it evangelism!--by telling our story to the community. There is an ingrained reluctance and much Scriptural support against tooting one's horn, but in these cacophonous times one can't be completely silent. The church and church members perform many unpublicized acts of charity; some people in the wider community might be interested in joining the Church if they heard about them.

The spirit of comity pervaded the meeting hall, even during the contentious debate on Israeli settlements. The proposed Resolution called for "divest[ment] from all companies that enable the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem and to boycott all products manufactured in Israeli settlements." The church would urge other organizations, such as the $236 billion California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS), to liquidate investments in such companies, which included names like Boeing, Motorola, Caterpillar, and General Dynamics.

To soften its seeming one-sidedness, the Resolution was amended to acknowledge the rights of both Israelis and Palestinians to self-determination, statehood, safety, and security. Nevertheless, the Resolution was defeated, 171-144, in a show of hands. We live in one of the most liberal Dioceses in one of the most liberal Protestant denominations, but this one was too much to swallow. Other resolutions, which pertained to church matters, passed overwhelmingly.

After the convention adjourned, we passed by Occupy SF demonstrators marching along Sixth Street. There are many different ways, over and above mere working and consuming, that people choose to participate in civic society, and some of them were on display on this beautiful weekend in the Bay Area.