Washington Window: May 2007: Council votes to disband Peace Commission

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By Jim Naughton
Washington Window
Vol. 76, No. 6, May 2007

Acting on a recommendation from Bishop John Bryson Chane, the Diocesan Council voted to disband the Commission on Peace "to make way for a different approach" to peace and justice issues at its April meeting.

The council also approved a "facilitated gathering" of the bishop, representatives of the commission and others to explore new ways of addressing such issues.

"The bishop strongly feels that the Commission on Peace needs to end life as it currently exists, and that there will then be a time of resurrection," wrote Ann V. Talty, the diocese's governance officer in a report presented to the council. "The group has its own long-time culture, and in order to do new things in new ways, a re-birth would be the way to go, rather than a reform."

Bishop Chane, who was on vacation, did not attend the meeting. However he had met five days before the meeting with members of the commission and members of the diocese's Committee Oversight Advisory Group and made his recommendation.

Warren Clark, chairman of the commission, the Rev. Canon Michael Hamilton, co-founder and former chairman and Pamela Moffett, a former member of the commission, asked the council not to disband the group.

"I think we have tried very hard to be responsive to the bishop and the council," Clark said, adding that the commission had been "quite systematic" in gathering "a broad body of opinion about the kind of things we should be doing."

He offered a resolution that would focus the group's activities for 2007 on promoting reconciliation, advancing the Millennium Development Goals, sponsoring interfaith activities and preparing papers on Christian economic perspectives.

"Who is gong to do the work of justice?" asked Hamilton, who cited the expertise of members of some of the commission's sub-committees. "We are anxious to cooperate. Don't lose what you've got already."

Several council members criticized the commission for acting as though it were independent of the diocese while using the diocese's name.

"The commission never came before this body and presented a vision of itself as part of the diocese," said John Welch, chairman of the Finance Committee and a member of the Committee Oversight Advisory Group.

Others said that while the commission's activities were important, its charge, membership and reporting procedures should be the same as other diocesan committees.

"This was a vote to have the diocese take responsibility for its peace and justice activities," council member Linda Freeman said afterwards. She and Welch had been the oversight group's liaisons to the commission.

Only the Rev. Carlton Hayden voted against the resolution to disband the commission, while the vote to hold a gathering to explore new strategies was unanimous.

The resolution to disband the committee also recognized the "dedication and accomplishments" of commission members and the group's role as "an incubator of peace and justice initiatives."
In other business, the council:

allocated $15,000 to a project to research the history of black Episcopalians in the Diocese of Washington. The project was initially proposed by Chane in his address to the Diocesan Convention in 2006, but had never received diocesan funding. A committee led by Susan Stonesifer, historiographer of the diocese, has completed preliminary work on the project, but funds from the diocese are necessary both to secure research assistance, and to assure potential donors that the diocese is committed to the project, Stonesifer said.
authorized members of the former Companion Diocese Committee to continue facilitating relationships between congregations in the dioceses of Washington and Honduras. Bishop Lloyd Allen of Honduras had asked Chane to allow the relationship to continue informally even though the official three-year "companion" relationship between the two dioceses had ended.
heard reports from task forces on development, and congregational development. In discussion of the development report, the council indicated that it did not think the diocese was prepared to undertake a capital campaign until 2009 at the earliest, and that the task force should continue to regard issues of stewardship and congregational giving as part of its mandate. "We have an idea that we want to do a capital campaign," said Lori Perrine, chair of the task force, "but we haven't in concert with the bishop defined the focus of that campaign."

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