“Differentiation” is a popular concept among conservative Episcopalians these days, and at a one-day special convention on Oct. 24, voting members of the Diocese of South Carolina produced truckloads of the stuff.
 
They affirmed the Anglican Communion’s covenant in draft form, and for that we offer them unqualified praise. On other matters: Do you have a gnawing feeling that the Episcopal Church’s ordination vows are too vague? The diocese has supplemented them. Are you ashamed of General Convention resolutions that pave the way for more openly gay bishops and pastoral blessings for same-sex couples? The diocese has declared them null and void within its boundaries. Do your body and soul groan from day after numbing day of General Convention? South Carolina’s deputation has reserved the right to stay home in protest of a convention that daily proves the truism about Church councils being capable of error. For Episcopalians who have grown weary of General Convention’s reams of busybody and preening resolutions, the Diocese of South Carolina’s Bronx cheer is entertaining, if not cathartic.
 
All together: Out with the bad air, in with the good air! Now, let us keep breathing, more deeply and more slowly, until our minds are clear. The diocese’s vote to authorize its bishop and General Convention deputation to withdraw from governing bodies of the Episcopal Church puts too fine a point on legitimate criticisms. Declaring two General Convention resolutions null and void is a similar overstep.
 
Granted, dioceses have the right to disregard any General Convention resolution they wish. Resolutions, as the keepers of the Constitution and Canons frequently remind us, do not carry the same authority as constitutional amendments or canons. Resolutions are recommendations, expressions of the mind of General Convention. To treat them as new revelations from God, or new laws to which dioceses or congregations must pledge their obeisance, is absurd.
 
Voting to declare any General Convention resolution null and void may, however, provoke an already lawsuit-addicted church bureaucracy, and for little more than an exercise in symbolism. Dioceses should know by now that benign neglect of any annoying (or even sinful) resolution is the wiser path.
 
As for withdrawing from the Episcopal Church’s governing bodies: Physical separation creates new realities of its own, and precious few of them lead to repentance or reconciliation with God and one another. Physical separation, to borrow from the witty Bishop Mark Lawrence, grows like kudzu, and it creates still more separation. Bonnie Anderson, president of the House of Deputies, got this right when she wrote to South Carolina’s General Convention deputies: “Priests and Bishops are called to be part of the councils and government of the Church, not to withdraw from them.”
 
This does not mean that the bishop or deputies of South Carolina must consider General Convention a Council of Nicea of the 21st century; it would be a gross error to do so. We agree with Bishop Lawrence that General Convention is a major part of the problem today, not least when leaders attempt to wield it as an instrument to curtail diocesan autonomy in the name of a would-be national hierarchy. Yet General Convention remains the provincial (alas, in more ways than one) council within which bishops and politically engaged clergy and laity must work beyond their dioceses.
 
Ordained ministers of the Episcopal Church have pledged to participate in its councils. In the case of General Convention, only a small percentage of priests or deacons answer to this demanding responsibility. Not many are selfless or ambitious enough to seek it. Bishops who wish to maintain voices of authority within their own house boycott its meetings, including General Convention, at their peril.
 
Underlying these practical considerations for remaining involved are ecclesiological and theological responsibilities. For Christians who read the New Testament with the reverent care it deserves, the Church is the bride of Christ, and Christ the bridegroom prepares her for eternal joy — even, it seems, through humiliation or spiritual grief suffered at a local synod of one member of a long-divided Body.
 
To be sure, in our shared sins, we are often more like Gomer, the prostitute whom God ordered Hosea to marry. In this case, when we believe theological or ideological distortions are harming our corner of the Church, our calling is to do what the faithful have always done, since the time of the patriarchs and prophets: Speak what we know of Scripture; stand our ground in the blessed company of all faithful people, including communion-minded dioceses and parishes; and leave the results to God’s perfect and eventual justice.
 
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