TO: Deputies to Diocesan Convention
From: Battle Brown, President of Diocesan Council
Date: September 15, 2004
Subject: Council Resolution recommending Convention NOT consider resolutions #4 to #9 andwithdrawal of resolution #10.

I am taking this opportunity to write you regarding the ten resolutions the Resolutions Committee ofDiocesan Council forwarded to the council for their consideration and vote at our September meeting.As you know, Diocesan Council is charged with reviewing all resolutions that are sent to DiocesanConvention.

In my address to Diocesan Council at that meeting I suggested that the debate of many of these resolutions would damage friendships and relations among us, and would injure the diocese. I also suggested that many of these resolutions were not necessary to our life as a diocese or to our witness to Jesus Christ. In fact, the debate of some of these resolutions is likely to create conflict and tear down our witness to Christ.

In my charge to council last January and in my address to council at our September meeting, I referred to President Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address during the American Civil War. He stated,

Neither [side] anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other.

Do we not invoke God’s aid against each other? And, I wonder if either side in our current church conflict is looking for a result that is “fundamental and astounding?”

As such, my recommendation was that we as a council should consider recommending that for the good of the body and of the whole diocese we forward these resolutions to Convention with our recommendation that the convention as a whole not consider them. - Council voted to follow my recommendation even though some members of council were in fact the proposers of some of these resolutions we were able to agree, though not quite unanimously, that in the best interest of the diocese we would yield our individual right for the greater good of the body and the diocese.

One sign of that yielding at our meeting was the agreement from the proposers of resolution #10 to withdraw it from consideration.

As Canon Hays said at our meeting “ in a different time and a different place, the words of these resolutions would be perceived differently, but we are viewing the world through a particular set of lenses right; the lens of polarization. This makes all of these resolutions divisive and makes it difficult, if not impossible to consider these resolutions.”

It is my hope that you as a Convention will carefully consider Council’s recommendation that you not consider resolutions #4 to #9 during this convention. Resolutions #1 & #3 were passed as part of the overarching work of the diocese. Resolution 2 was passed on to you as the work of an appointed commission of the diocese, we recommend Convention not deal with resolutions #4 through #9 showing no favoritism therein. Since resolution #10 was withdrawn, it will not be considered.

I wish you all discernment and the wisdom of the Holy Spirit in the work that lies before you,
Respectfully,

[Signed] Battle

[HOME] [COMMUNICATIONS] [RESOURCES] [2004 Convention] [FAQs] [General Info] [Parish Resources] [CALENDAR] [LINKS] [ABOUT US]

Comments, suggestions or feedback? Please click here to email to our webmaster

Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh        #109 4530 Wm Penn Hwy        Murrysville, PA 15668