It has been nearly five months since the Parkland Douglas shooting that killed 17 students and educators at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in South Florida, but few have forgotten the tragedy – most notably, the Episcopal Church.
On the first Sunday of the 79th General Convention of The Episcopal Church in Austin, Texas, hundreds gathered in Brush Square Park to hear speeches from Episcopalians Philip and April Schentrup, whose daughter, Carmen, was shot with an AR-15 rifle by former student Nikolas Cruz. The Parkland shooting is considered one of the worst ever in American history.
“The testimony was moving,” said Bishop Greg Brewer in a video feed from Austin, Texas. “The demonstration, the prayer. We are crying out to God to make a difference in the life of our country.”
The Schentrups’ speech was arranged by Bishops United Against Gun Violence, an organization that endeavors to reduce gun violence in the U.S., according to the Episcopal News Service.
The Marjory Stoneman Douglas event was one of two public services on Sunday, July 8, in which members of the General Convention participated.
About 40 minutes away at the Hutto Detention Facility in Taylor, Texas, approximately 1,000 Episcopalians listened to a sermon from the Most Rev. Michael Curry, Presiding Bishop, concerning the U.S. government’s immigration policies that have separated families and more, according to the Episcopal News Service.
“One Bishop told a very moving story as they gathered together; they couldn’t get very close,” said Bishop Brewer, who is one of 11 people from the Diocese of Central Florida attending the General Convention. “The police wouldn’t let them. But as they gathered together and sang, the women inside … put up little signs that they had handwritten on a piece of paper and put (them) up against the window so people knew that they were being heard and were grateful for that demonstration of love and concern.”
Some news reports said the public service moved the incarcerated women to tears. “We do not come in hatred, we do not come in bigotry, we do not come to put anybody down, we come to lift everybody up. We come in love, we come in love because we follow Jesus and Jesus taught us love,” said Presiding Bishop Michael Curry in the noontime Prayer of Vision, Witness and Justice, according to a report from the Episcopal News Service.
“Love the lord your god and love your neighbor,” Bishop Curry said. “Love your neighbor. We come in love.”
Following the services, conventioneers gathered in the House of Deputies and House of Bishops for business. Bishop Brewer said much of the business concerned elections. In the House of Deputies, the Rev. Gay Clark Jennings was reelected as president for her third and final three-year term, running unopposed and winning by a 786-26 vote.
“Thank you to this House,” Jennings said in an Episcopal News Service story. “I love this House and I love this Church and so I am grateful for the confidence you have expressed in electing me for a third and final term. In the last six years, you have afforded me the privilege of making a life and serving this Church and all of you. I thank you for the opportunity to do it for three more years.”
There was a different kind of atmosphere in the House of Bishops. “There was a deep conversation for which I was actually very grateful where women bishops stood up and talked to the rest of us about what it had been like to be victims of sexual harassment,” Bishop Brewer said. “They told some of their own stories and they called us to covenant to begin to deal with this in a deeper level around trying to find less gender-based discrimination within the life of our Church.
“In fact, that is something I will be coming back with to the Diocese of Central Florida to begin to meet and listen especially with women clergy to hear what their stories have been in the life of the Church because that should not so much be named among us if we are in fact one in Christ,” Bishop Brewer said.
Bishop Brewer said the evening concluded with a gathering of bishops from various perspectives, hosted by The Living Church: “The cries that came out of that meeting were heartfelt, deep differences around the question of marriage. The admission of one of our bishops who said: ‘Liberals are the ones who are in the majority and if you want to stay us in the Church, what are you willing to give to us? How can we find a way to live together? What does it look like for us to be committed together to see us become one in Jesus Christ? Is that even possible?’ It was, fact, over an hour and a half, of a very high level of honest conversation in the midst of significant differences.”
Bishop Brewer said debate about gay marriage in the House of Deputies was scheduled to begin in full on Monday, July 9. “If you are praying for the Episcopal Church’s General Convention, (today) is a crucial time to pray as we wrestle together about how we can live in a place where we have two competing teachings around marriage?” he said. “That is, in fact, the challenge before us, regardless of how that gets addressed within the context of resolutions. So, please pray. Pray for us.”