Hard engineering by Indaba

Today brought two indaba sessions on the Covenant, a subject which I have to admit I have always seen as rather top-shelf. Our group included a senior leader in the covenant process, so it was a real test of whether the indaba method can produce serious work on hard and technical subjects.

Pretty much everyone spoke, and it was noticeable that they were listening carefully to each other and interacting. Nobody could simply switch off the subject. Although there were strong and well established views among some group members, one or two speakers gladly owned up to shifts in their positions induced by listening to other peoples’ contributions. There was no grandstanding, name calling or “point of order” timewasting. The expert input in the group was treated with tremendous respect, but not put on a pedestal. One new creative way forward was generated within the group, to go back into the process. We were well led and enabled, but the leader did not have to exert any heavyweight refereeing skills. I have to say the sessions were tiring, but far more engaged, drawing in a far wider group of people, than I expected.

As to the result we could all see the purpose of having a covenant as a positive basis for communion apart from history or habit. We felt the appendix that has been designed to give it effect seemed far too legalistic for most of us. Some Churches would find it profoundly incompatible with their order. We could see why some felt it was very important to have something hard. We were as yet undecided as to what or how, but there was a clear sense of the theological, social and legal parameters within which the drafting group would thus have to work.

A success? I think everyone felt they had been taken seriously, and once we could see where the real sticking points were, it was remarkable how the group almost instinctively collaborated to develop a solution, rather than cobber others with their individual positions. It was also interesting how people did not tone down their expression to the mediochre, but showed great freedom and clarity around their deepest convictions. I was also impressed by the way in which, when Scriptural inputs happened, people showed great humility and desire to be corrected if there was anything they had misunderstood in the text — a great desire to get beyond soundbites, and use the knowledge of the group. Nothing in the democratic nature of the group compromised respect for our expert contributor, especially because his graciousness and willingness to engage in a non-defensive way were notable. Negatively, I'd have to say this way of working takes more getting used to than I thought it would, to get the best out of its possibilities. I’d be fascinated to see this kind of technique used in other Church contexts, now we have begun to get the hang of how it works.

Love bombed by a Lord Bishop

I spent some time this morning being buttonholed by enthusiastic people trying to push copies of Michael Nazir-Ali’s latest book at me. The first time round I tactfully declined, already having a large bag of promotional materials. The second time, I explained I really didn’t want one, given the way in which +Michael’s words have been twisted in and by the media to make him a less than helpful voice on the ground in many of my Muslim majority areas. I also explained how much I would have preferred his voice in person than in print. The third time round, I was in a hurry, did the Anglican thing, and caved in. I’ll look forward to reading and perhaps even reviewing his book here, sometime after this conference.

Someone at lunch said of it “Remaindered — already?” “No, no,” I said. “Very odd, then,” said my companion. “How extraordinary to sit twenty miles up the road, refusing to talk with the rest of us, but choosing instead to address us in print.” I understood, of course. I tried to explain that Love has many languages, and remote control bombing people with paperbacks from twenty miles away is just one of them.

Our conversation petered off the subject of +Michael, and into tales we all had of teenage children who had gone off in a sulk and could only be brought back into the family, sometimes after many years, by remaining open to them, whilst refusing to be carried away into angry responses by their childishness, lest any of us say things we would later regret.

On to the Sexuality hearings — the lowest attended of any so far, by a fair old way... and at the microphone as I speak, it’s 11 UK, North American bishops and 2 from the rest of the world. If it doesn’t rain I may go off for a run...

Hitting the wall or breaking through?

Things could well be getting what our Caribbean friends call Crucial. Yesterday afternoon’s meeting to share creative ways forward felt rather stuck, with three potential ideas nobody seemed to much want developed in detail. It was OK, but essentially consisted of the same old win/lose thinking from the same old people, the vast majority US or UK. It’s a grim thought but without the indaba process we could have been spending two weeks like this.

This experience does at least establish that we can’t make anything different without thinking different, which was pretty obvious, I suppose.

We’re not quite there yet I realise. Bad experience of old methods certainly vindicates the organisers’ decision not just to re-run the 1998 process. Another bishop said to me today that, actually, to get 650-odd incompatible people from 130 countries to listen to each other and communicate together, breaking bread as Christians, and praying through their problems without rancour or the smack of top-down authoritarianism, is in itself a reasonably unusual thing to happen in today’s world.

The indaba process seems to have been honoured. I was talking to our listener today, and he was telling me about comparing notes between the indaba groups for sympathetic resonance, then crystalising the widest held strong convictions into the document. It’s not every English bishop’s cup of tea, but it certainly gives voices to the voiceless, and may well beat Westminster Custard Pie fighting as a basis for real progress.

Here, for example, is a blog entry from George Packard, that is more wonderful the more I reflect on it:

If the Anglican Communion would just turn over their troubles to my 40 member indaba group everything would be fine. We had a break through as an American female bishop likened our church to siblings arguing in the back seat of the family car. There was a murmur of final understanding since there had been a wonder if those Episcopalians were coming unglued. No, just poking each other the way kids do. "But we stay together and that's what makes unwanted boundary crossings by South American and African bishops so confusing." She said.

I was re-playing that fateful day in Minneapolis in 2003 in my mind when we confirmed Gene Robinson's consecration and how no one gave much of a passing thought to how this news would impact anyone in this room. Some have been beaten and called members of "the gay church" in cultures where sympathizers like that were stoned, others have died...not because of Gene but because dioceses have rejected the HIV-AIDS assistance from the American church's tainted money.

The conversation--for the Americans and the Canadians--had real remorse in it: we acted without care for the greater family and we were deeply sorry. I'm not saying the consecration wouldn't have happened but the hurt of disregard for them--which was plain and evident--would not have been there.

Then Bishop Michael of Sudan continued as he said that his church was only getting used to thinking about homosexuals now with that he composed a prayer right on the spot emphasizing his point. After the entreaty to "Our dear Lord" it was as sensitive a summary of their uncertain lives in his land that I had ever heard. We were silent. (I wonder if this Lambeth is about where had hoped the 1998 meeting would have been in the appreciation of basic gay lives and rights.)

The bishop went on to say that we had to give he and his people some time; elevating gay persons into leadership positions of authority was confusing to him and his congregations. "Can't a baptized person get into heaven without you making him a bishop for awhile?" He had us there. As he was speaking I wasn't sure if the nods were in sympathy or agreement. It seemed like both and it came about as there was an acceptance of North American remorse.

The atmosphere in the room had changed. Said our facilitator, "We seem to arrived at a special level of trust." And that seemed to hold true for the heretofore stilted conversations about the Covenant too, that code of conduct we have all been dreading. Now, there was a growing consensus around the things which make us an affirmed, communion of churches in search of a grace-filled process which would come to the rescue when we get out of sorts with each other. It had been the meanderings in recent years for the right venue to discuss this which has been so maddening.

The vast majority of us in the middle, if you like, are now looking to the people who have more absolute ideas, left and right, to raise their game. If a few of them manage to do that, as well as having invented another way of decision making that takes every voice more seriously than our run of the mill synods and councils, we could achieve a significant breakthrough.