Copyright © 2007 The Episcopal Diocese of East Tennessee

By Emily McDonald
South East Area ETE Correspondent

Comments about the tension between the Episcopal Church and other churches in the Anglican Communion, between individual parishes and dioceses, and an in-depth look at the Millennium Development Goals were featured during the Episcopal Church Women’s statewide conference and spring retreat held April 27-28 at DuBose Conference Center in Monteagle.

The conference opened with a service of Holy Eucharist at Christ Church in Alto. The Rt. Rev. John Bauerschmidt, bishop of Tennessee, preached, and the Rt. Rev. Charles vonRosenberg, bishop of East Tennessee, celebrated.

Millennium Development Goals

The Rev. Kedron Jarvis was keynote speaker for the conference and focused her presentation on the Millennium Development Goals. As former director of church relations with Episcopal Relief and Development, she has extensive background in working with the MDGs. She currently serves as interim-assistant at Grace Church in The Plains, Va.

Jarvis began her presentation with the explanation that the MDGs resulted from a pact to eradicate poverty by 2015 that had been signed by 189 nations in 2000.

“It seems to me they can be our epitaph for the world. Epitaphs are our last words,” she said. “The MDGs are about using our voices. They are about using our power. The world is crying out. What do we need? We need a resurrection story.”

The goals are special because they are measurable, they are timebound and they bring together rich and poor countries in relationship, she said, and then she talked about the eight goals, providing statistics to emphasize the needs in each area.

During the discussion of reducing child mortality and improving maternal health (Goals 4 and 5) Judy Hines of Messiah, Pulaski, told of the yearly, two-week medical mission trips she and her husband, Gene, take to Ecuador.

“We see 300 to 400 patients a day,” she said. “We are the only medical people they see until we return.” The couple has been taking the trips since 1999, and “it has been a life-changing experience.”

Jarvis used Tanzania as an example of successes in the MDG effort. It is one of 11 countries establishing a debt-relief program. She said more than 1.6 million children returned to school there, seemingly overnight.

She gave several suggestions of what an individual or a parish can do to help achieve the goals: Use your voice and join One (www. episcopalchurch:org/one); become a One parish; educate those around you; and research the groups to which you give money.

Conversation with bishops

Bishops Bauerschmidt and vonRosenberg answered questions during the traditional “Conversation with the Bishops.” The Rt. Rev. Don Johnson, bishop of West Tennessee, was unable to participate because he was attending the consecration of a new bishop.

Bishop vonRosenberg was asked about the Primates communique from their meeting in Tanzania and the House of Bishops’ spring meeting in Texas. He said the intention of the process going on internationally was “the need to have some sense of mutual accountability with one another.”

He said that at the House of Bishops meeting, it was apparent that the Anglican Communion does not accept the polity of the American church. Bishops don’t speak unilaterally for the church, he reminded the group, and decisions made without the clergy and laity would not be representative of the whole church – or binding on its members. He added that the presiding bishop’s responsibilities are limited, in contrast to other provinces where Primates are almost autocratic.

Also at the HOB spring meeting, the bishops passed several resolutions, one of which invited the Archbishop of Canterbury to meet with them. He has agreed to come to the fall HOB meeting, Bishop vonRosenberg said. The goal of that meeting is to explain “who we are as the Episcopal Church.”

“The bottom line for me is my intention to be both a member of the Episcopal Church and a full participant in the Anglican Communion,’’ he said.

In response to another question, the bishop said he looked forward to the Lambeth Conference, especially if its theological reflection focuses on Christian formation and education, as the Archbishop of Canterbury has asked.

The spring House of Bishops meeting was Bishop Bauerschmidt’s first since his consecration. He said, “I detected no acrimonious exchanges on the floor of the house.” Everything was conducted “in keeping with polite human discourse.” The new bishop said he was impressed by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and her leadership. “She is an original, non-anxious presence in a room,” he said.

The bishops were asked if people in their dioceses had left the church.

“I have some experience of a group formed in Chattanooga,” Bishop vonRosenberg said. It represented “folks who had concerns from a number of different churches.”

He said a group also left Ascension, Knoxville, and formed an Anglican congregation. “I wished them well,” he said, but he admitted having “mixed feelings” about the split in the congregation. “We ought to be able to worship together,” but it was apparent “they had a need to go different roads for a while.” However, the group remaining at the church has “experienced a resurrection.”

Bishop Bauerschmidt talked about the situation of All Saints, Smyrna. Last fall a decision was made to form a new congregation called St. Patrick’s, to join the Convocation of Anglicans in North America and to close the founding church. A group of parishioners, however, wanted to remain at All Saints.

“No group is ever charged with closing a church unilaterally,” Bishop Bauerschmidt said. “St. Patrick’s Anglican Church has left the building, and that left a small group to continue as All Saints.”

He said the church experiences a “perennial temptation to pull it all together, get it right and have a perfect church.” But in the church, “we need to be able to discuss our spirituality and our relationship to God, not hand those things over to other people to control.”

ECW on the web: etdiocese.net/ecw/ or contact Arline Caliger, president, kali8824z@aol.com.