Bishops' Blog

Through a Glass Darkly: The Next Chapter in the Life of the Episcopal Diocese of Dallas

This past meeting of the Executive Council, a member sagely asked for a concise summary of our vision and strategy going into the next few years. We attempted a version of this in our 2024 budget, which was organized around ‘oneness,’ the office of the bishop and various endeavors to underline our being one body, ‘flourishing’, help offered to specific parishes, and ‘the future,’ actions we hope are getting us ready for what is to come. These categories are also implied in this short statement. 

Strategic plans have an implicit tilt toward new initiatives. In fact a great deal of our time at the diocese has been, and will continue to be, with the perennial, and crucial, work: pastoral care, support in searches, help with stewardship, teaching, etc.

Years ago I heard about how Brown University put in its campus sidewalks. It let students walk for a year, and then paved the parts they had already worn clear. In a similar spirit,  I offer this response to the request: a statement that aggregates what we are already doing in a way, that shows how ecclesiological assumptions and contextual trends conspire to show a path ahead. It is a draft, since the context we minister in is changing constantly. This has no official status, nor do I anticipate any vote on it. If it provokes conversation, that would be a good outcome.

I could have said more about what the next General Convention may bring. It is included on list. Be assured that we will provide sessions of both ‘pre-game’ and ‘post-game’ commentary.

Of course the only vision statement we really need we already have:   ‘forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal of the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.’ (Philippians 3:14)

Peace +GRS

The Next Chapter 

Insofar as society in north Texas will be…

-Increasingly ethnically diverse,

-Bilingual,

-Politically divisive,

-Recovering still from the trauma of COVID,

-Graying among the Anglo populace (including Episcopalians),

-Rapidly growing economically and demographically, and

-Challenged in unprecedented ways technologically

And insofar as we as the Diocese of Dallas have

-A vocation of remembering our theological tradition, on behalf of the whole Church,

-Lived out in a spirit of ‘communion across difference,’ and

-A sense of the Church as one across racial lines,

-At once bound canonically to our own Church, and missionally to the wider Anglican Communion                                                

We aim in the next three years to

• Plant two Churches in growing communities north of Dallas, (as well as getting ready in Sherman, Kaufman County, etc.)
• Strengthen multi-cultural and Spanish-speaking congregations, (e.g. east McKinney)
• Continue to ordain young people, many of whom are on the ‘Canterbury Road’, with a
• Special focus on female and bi-lingual ordinands
• Continue to revive youth ministry in the diocese, (as we ‘travel lighter’ in infrastructure),
• Support and make flexible use of residential theological education,
• Encourage forms of cooperative ministry among smaller congregations,
• Strengthen our ties with predominantly African- American Churches,
• Forge new parish ties with global Anglican partners (e.g. our Cairo missionaries)
• Provide theological opportunities and fellowship for clergy and laity (clergy conference, RADVO, theology and technology lectureship, parish and mission days, new Spanish Stanton Center offerings)
• In a renewed Cathedral complex, including
• Contemplative prayer and healing ministry, to supplement our evangelistic efforts, and
• Articulate our vision and common life in relation to prospective changes out of General Convention 2024

Tune In, Turn Off, Drop In: A New Asceticism for our Time

Gender identity, political disinformation, AI, pandemic aftermath:  now there’s a controversial and polarizing list!  What if I told you that most of us could agree on something at the heart of all of these debates? In each case, technology in general and social media in particular have had a pernicious effect on us and our society. As a result of this, frankly, we’d do better to ‘just say ‘No.’’

Some friends of ours have a teenager. In spite of resistance, they withdrew all social media from her for a month, at the end of which she seemed more at ease, engaged, and peaceful.  There is now research to confirm this anecdote on a wider scale, that social media increase anxiety and depression.  Nor can one deny that the issue of gender identity itself was spread on the internet, wherever one may come down on the issue itself. At both pastoral and practical levels, wouldn’t we do better to begin by turning the social media volume all the way down?  Then we could get anxious kids the psychotherapeutic support they need, and see where they are once they become adults.

The main point of the movie about the origins of Facebook, Social Network, was that it was launched precisely in lieu of widespread social connections.  Since then we have seen it become a powerful and ubiquitous force that provokes and rewards anger. While political conflict is nothing new, it has been amplified and manipulated to a worrisome extent.  It is worth mentioning at this juncture that there are good theological reasons to give for the defense of democracy, namely that division of powers and civil liberties assume accurately the capacity of human nature for corruption and, as Augustine said, the libido dominandi. Tuning out social media would be good for the body politic, for it would contribute to a greater sense of the common good and civility.

The new kid on the block of social concern is Artificial Intelligence. You do not need to heed the direst of predictions to agree that baneful effects are on the way. Our political landscape flooded with disinformation indistinguishable from the real, broad swathes of employment surrendered to machines, and a blurring of a sense of the distinctness and dignity of the human being: these are the approaching ills everyone can acknowledge!  The notion that ‘because we can we must’ turns us into machines ourselves.

I do not have space here fully to develop the idea, but you can see how technology in each case is not something neutral or indifferent. It has the potential to hold us in its thrall, that is, it has a kind of power over us. One can compare this to the concept of the ‘powers and principalities’ which we find, for example in Ephesians. The closest concept we have to this in our culture is that of addiction.

Where does that leave us as the Church?  The time of the pandemic required us to do the best we could in difficult situations- most of us suffer from 20/20 hindsight.  At the time, technology was a great help through the most constrained period, and can have certain focused uses still.  But we can surely now see in relief how the Church is necessarily embodied, located, and interpersonal. We are literally the clay pot in which the treasure of the Gospel is found (II Corinthians 4:7).  As the floodtide of technology rises, we must be resolutely ‘Luddite’, an island where we ‘present our bodies as a living sacrifice’ (Romans 12:1) Sunday by Sunday.   What was once obvious may soon become a witness to our human uniqueness as made ‘in the image of God.’ (Genesis 1:26). To this end, might we see covenants and fasts from tech as part of the spiritual life of youth and adults?

    +GRS