Episcopal Church plans reforms in theology and governance

Episcopal bishops chart future of church at pivotal Texas gathering

The House of Bishops is wrapping up a weeklong meeting at Camp Allen in the Diocese of Texas, where discussions focused on a range of issues affecting the future of The Episcopal Church, particularly theological education for aspiring priests.

Other topics on the agenda of the March 17-23 meeting included strategies for providing churchwide support to dioceses and congregations, new ways of developing liturgies for potential inclusion in the Book of Common Prayer and a set of proposed changes to the structure of the Anglican Communion that will be taken up this summer by the Anglican Consultative Council.

"We've had a pretty extraordinary week together," Indianapolis Bishop Jennifer Baskerville-Burrows, the House of Bishops vice-chair, said in a March 23 news briefing by Zoom over the final day's lunch hour. "Our eyes have been deeply focused on what's happening with our church ... but also looking more broadly to the rest of the communion and our partnerships across the world."

The House of Bishops makes up one half of the church's bicameral governing body, General Convention, which next meets in July 2027 in Phoenix, Arizona. The other half is the House of Deputies.

An estimated 122 bishops and bishops-elect attended this meeting of the House of Bishops in Navasota, about an hour northwest of Houston, according to Baskerville-Burrows. She was joined in the news briefing by several other bishops who were involved in leading key discussions during the week.

About half of the week's sessions were devoted to theological education, and the bishops were joined in those conversations by several representatives from Episcopal seminaries and diocesan collaboratives, including the Bishop Kemper School for Ministry, the Stevenson School for Ministry and the IONA Collaborative.

"For the House of Bishops to spend three days on one topic lets us know just how important that topic is," Newark Bishop Carlye Hughes said. "It's multilayered. It's looking at what we need right now but [also] what we need going forward - what we need as a whole church and what we need in local areas."

The Rt. Rev. William Franklin, the former bishop of Western New York, called it a historic meeting for its examining education for the priesthood from all angles at a time when fewer priests are attending traditional residential seminaries and more coursework is being completed online.

Franklin emphasized the optimistic tone as the bishops and educators focused on "what do we need to be doing now to prepare priests for this moment?"

"There was not a sense of worry and fear in the room," Franklin said. "I think there was a surprising sense that we're on the threshold of a new era."

Rio Grande Bishop Michael Hunn summarized another session with Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe in which Rowe discussed ways the churchwide staff is connecting with diocesan counterparts, supporting their work at the local level and experimenting with initiatives to expand the church's capacity in the face of declining churchwide membership and limited resources.

Hunn's own diocese is one of the largest in the church geographically, including New Mexico, parts of western Texas and much of the United States' southern border. The diocese also is largely rural and sparsely populated, and some congregations are not able to afford full-time priests, let alone large support staffs.

Part of Rowe's vision is to share expertise among dioceses like Rio Grande and across the church, so that Episcopalians at the congregational level can focus on serving the Gospel of Jesus, Hunn said. The churchwide structure "needs to focus on helping dioceses that are struggling to deliver the ministry of The Episcopal Church locally."

The bishops were particularly receptive to Rowe's emphasis on realigning the church now so it will be viable 30-50 years in the future, Hunn said. "This is a moment for us to be clear about who we are," he said, so the church "not only continues to exist but continues to thrive in a world that's desperate for it."

During the news briefing, Hunn also spoke briefly about the work of a task force that is considering updates to the church Constitution's Article X, which defines the Book of Common Prayer and governs how it can be revised. Hunn, a member of the task force, said it is working on a report with recommendations that will be presented to the 82nd General Convention next year for consideration.

And the Rt. Rev. Ian Douglas, former bishop of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut, described a panel discussion in which the House of Bishops received information about proposed Anglican Communion structural reforms known as the Nairobi-Cairo proposals.

The proposals were released in December 2024 and revised this month by the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith and Order, or IASCUFO. The commission is recommending two primary reforms, focused on how the Anglican Communion is defined and the way it assigns leadership in certain representative bodies, including the Anglican Consultative Council, or ACC.

The Episcopal Church will send three representatives to the next ACC meeting this summer in Belfast, Northern Ireland, where the Nairobi-Cairo proposals will be discussed. Douglas said a common sentiment expressed at this House of Bishops meeting was that there was no need to rush a vote on the proposals. They suggested giving The Episcopal Church and other Anglican provinces more time to discuss the ideas internally during the three years until the next ACC meeting.

"We believe strongly, I think, that these are important conversations that need to go further and deeper across the communion and in our own dioceses and in our own church before ACC gives a thumbs-up or thumbs-down on these proposals," Douglas said.

The House of Bishops had one more afternoon session March 23 before concluding the meeting. Baskerville-Burrows said spirits have been high all week.

"It's a time of great high energy," she said as the bishops have engaged in "what feels like the kind of trust and relational work needed for us to lead the church in this moment."