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[Back to index of Special Issue articles] Convention deputies chart course for the year By Lucy Chumbley Deputies to the Diocese of Washington's 111th annual convention on Jan. 27-28 passed legislation on topics from environmental stewardship to global poverty and celebrated ecumenical and international partnerships. Representatives from the diocese's 93 parishes passed resolutions supporting the National Workshop on Christian Unity; advocating environmental stewardship and the ethical treatment of domestic workers; and affirming a "Call to Partnership" put forth by the Consultation of Religious Leaders on Global Poverty at a September 2005 United Nations summit (see the full text of these resolutions here). They also passed legislation that establishes May 17 as a day to commemorate the Christian witness of former Supreme Court Justice and Civil Rights activist Thurgood Marshall in the diocese (see story here), and asks the 2006 General Convention of the Episcopal Church to consider him for inclusion in the book of Lesser Feasts and Fasts. While this legislation passed without a ripple, resolutions that called for the diocese to affirm the Windsor Report and to fully include gay and lesbian persons met with spirited debate. An amended version of the latter resolution was passed with some dissent, but after much debate, convention deputies voted to indefinitely postpone a vote on the resolution affirming the Windsor Report. "The Episcopal Church and its membership and the Anglican Communion are clearly in crisis," said Bradley Hutt, of Christ, Clinton, who submitted the resolution along with Richard Best, of St. Paul's, K Street, and David Bickel of All Saints, Chevy Chase. "The crisis is clearly theological." St. Columba's parishioner John Vanderstar, who serves on the national church's Executive Committee, made the motion to indefinitely postpone the resolution, pointing out that it called for the affirmation of a 23-page document. "I don't think we can do this in the time allotted," he said. "These are subjects that will be discussed extensively at General Convention." A proposed modification to the resolution was rejected by its proponents. "To approve a meaningless resolution with the heart and soul sucked out is meaningless," Hutt said. The Rev. Nancy Lee Jose, rector of St. Thomas', D.C., introduced legislation on the Full Inclusion of Gay and Lesbian Persons, which she said "embodies concrete persons in this room and in the world around us." The resolution upholds the right of every person of faith to participate fully in the sacraments and life of the church; and gives parishes, with the permission of the bishop, the authority to develop rites for the blessing of same-sex unions. The Right Rev. David Beetge, bishop of the South African diocese of Highveld, attended the convention as a guest and as a representative of the Province of Southern Africa. He said he had "listened intently" to the discussion on human sexuality, just as he had done two years ago when he attended the diocese's 109th convention before taking part in the work of the Lambeth Commission, the group that produced the Windsor Report. "Your convention two years ago had a deep impact on me," he said, adding that he had spoken frequently since his 2003 visit about the diversity he found in this diocese. "Where we work together, the Anglican Communion can make a difference in the lives of others," he said. "No text, no final argument will ever convert both sides - we will never find the right text to win. "Let us never forget that we're a communion, not a federation. There's something mystical about a communion, and it's not easy to understand the mystical." Thanks to the advocacy of Bishop John B. Chane and the Diocese of Washington, Beetge said, the Province of Southern Africa was able to secure a $10 million grant from the United States Agency for International Development to fight AIDS. "Partnership is about what difference we can make in this world that God has put us in," he said. "We treasure the partnership as a province that we have with you as the Diocese of Washington." "We've been living in each other's liturgy from the very start," he said. "That's all there is to say. We have been together in Christ from the very beginning… We have good news and it's news altogether different from this divided and chaotic and polarized world in which we live. We've been to the font. We've been washed in the holy water together." [Back to index of Special Issue articles]
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