Would you be disapointed if I told you that no one committed news?
More than 1,500 people packed into a hotel ballroom, maybe another 120 out in the hall. All the big names stepping to the microphone to have their three-minutes’ say. Tens of thousands of words spoken. Some of them eloquently, others not so much. One humorous moment–yup, just one–when, by the luck of the sign-up sheet, Bishop Dorsey Henderson of the committee called the name of Gene Robinson right after calling the name of Robert Duncan, and that juxtaposition drew a laugh from the crowd. (“I was reading the list,” Bishop Henderson said.)
I don’t think anyone said anything I hadn’t heard before. And I am not sure that anyone said anything that will be remotely helpful to the committee. Its 19-members basically served as something for the speakers to look at. God bless them.
My hunch is that reporters who don’t lead their stories with: “Division was on display as Episcopalians approached the final deadline for responding to etc….” will lead with Bishop Duncan’s claim that reconciliation “at this point in our life is impossible.” What he means by that, or whether he meant anything other than “I ‘m the decider,” is unclear, but you can build a nice doom and gloom lead out of it, and reporters seem wedded to the idea that if 12% of the Church of thereabouts were to take a hike, the remaining 88 percent, which includes most of our largest dioceses, would wither, while the remaining 12 percent would flourish.
I will pick through my notes and serve up some of the better quotes tomorrow. And I will have links to the press coverage. It seems utterly unlikely to me that any Windsor-related resolutions will be on the floor before Friday, and that’s being optimistic.