There’s lots of advice around for those of us in the Episcopalian hoi polloi by now, telling us how we should read the HOB communiqué from New Orleans, some of it suggesting that we lack the ability to read for ourselves, either because we are not in the know or because we were not present in the room with the bishops as they consulted.

One writer puts the case pretty bluntly, saying that “hypercritical second-guessing of the bishops” is “unreasonable” and “unseemly.” Another describes the communiqué as “a consensus document” and advises that we thank the bishops for their leadership, suggesting that various statements from New Orleans are still being perfected. Another argues that the responses of those of us who don’t think the bishops wrote very well are “sophomoric and self-indulgent.” Still another commends the virtues of “wordsmithing” and argues for the necessity of such language in addressing the present dissensus in our church.

Part of this seems merely academic to me, but part of it seems an inevitable consequence of the publication of a document (a public document, by the way) that possesses all the worst features of documents written by committees. Worse yet, to my mind, the communiqué is a lawyerly document. The Anglican Scotist asks, “Why can’t compromise and discernment be messy? Why can’t an honest compromise leave everyone disappointed?” My answer is that an honest compromise would have addressed the demands of the “Anglican Primates in Dar es Salaam” directly and would have detailed the dissensus in the HOB, itself. I think the resulting document would have upheld the determination of the American Church to govern itself as the bishops affirmed in March instead of appearing to retreat from that determination, but I can’t know that.

As it is, the communiqué is being read as a retreat on every hand, and nowhere more clearly than in reflections of bishops from my home state of Texas. Retreat is the clear implication of reflections by Bishops Lillibridge and Reed of West Texas, who consider themselves marginalized within the HOB, but who nonetheless were able to persuade their colleagues to “go further than the Bishops were able to go in March.” Bishop James Stanton of Dallas has issued a statement in which he laments that the HOB didn’t retreat far enough but makes this rueful observation near the end:

It seems that, even with the best of intentions, we simply cannot get beyond the thought that we might learn from what the Archbishop of Canterbury called “common discernment;” in other words, that our decisions as a House might be wrong and at any rate ought to be subject to the advice and concerns of our Communion brothers and sisters. Many bishops argued for ambiguity as the most “honest” statement of “where we are.” Perhaps that is true. That is the effectual outcome of this meeting.

Though I should be leery of indulging in unseemly second guessing of my betters, I think the attempt to produce a consensus document when no consensus exists was a mistake. Bishops Lillibridge, Reed, and Stanton hold a minority position in the HOB, but it is a position that deserves to be heard. Other bishops, who represent the views of those of us on the left, deserve to be heard as well. Lawyerly language that obfuscates open dissensus serves nobody well. But perhaps the process was better than the document it produced. Many are saying of the HOB meeting as a whole that it was characterized by a lack of acrimony and a willingness to allow all members to make their own arguments. Here’s Bishop Stanton, again:

I am grateful for the tone of this meeting and for many aspects of the process and the contributions many bishops from very different perspectives made to it. I wish that such openness and frankness, and serious discussion, had characterized earlier meetings. (And here I refer to 15 years of such meetings!)

There will be more meetings, of course, and other position papers, and maybe some new legislation at the next General Convention. I pray for good news and hope I live to hear it. But as Dean Thomas Luck wrote yesterday, “in the scope of Christianity,” time is long.

–At seventy, I’m not getting any younger.