Behold, I am doing a new thing…before it springs up, I tell you of it. It was a joy to see in the Blue Book for General Convention proposed liturgies for church planting offered in side-by-side English and Spanish versions. True—the Spanish needed some perfecting, but its presence was not an afterthought of Convention, but provided by the authors.
Convention went further with a resolution (C029) calling for all offi cial Church documents and publications to be issued in Spanish by 2006, for Episcopal Life to contain Spanish sections, and for dioceses, congregations and other agencies to do the same. There was even funding ($85,000) for this effort. It passed overwhelmingly in both houses--and with a striking amendment.
In one of the serendipitous moments to which General Conventions are liable, a deputy from the Diocese of Haiti came to the microphone and spoke, fi rst in French, then in English. He represented one of the Episcopal Church’s most populous dioceses, he told us, and one that was almost entirely French-speaking. Should materials not also be offered in French? he asked. We voted, and it was so. To those who struggled for years to have Spanish recognized, it must have been a breathtaking moment, representing a watershed at which the Church assembled at last seemed to be grasping how multicultural we are, and are becoming.
This vote as nourished by daily worship in a smorgasbörd of languages (French, English, Creole, Spanish, Lakota, Chinese, Japanese, Ojibway, if memory serves me), and musical styles. It was echoed in amendments to a resolution which modestly funds a national television advertising campaign,now promising to be multicultural in word and image. This promises to be a very creative campaign, judging by the video clips at the exhibition booth, around which a group of enthusiastic teens and twenty-somethings were gathered as I passed.
The issue of multicultural and multilingual resources goes deeper, however. Committee 13 (Prayer Book, Liturgy & Music) spent quite a while wrestling with resolution A106 (an amalgam of the original item dealing with Episcopal Authority and Liturgical Development, and several other proposed resolutions asking for multiculturally sensitive rites), and still did not seem to resolve the sticking point. If rites genuinely expressing local devotion and cultural specifi city in the great variety of languages and dialects are to be valued, then the ability of bishops to evaluate and control liturgical materials and forms will inevitably be limited. Even those rare multilingual bishops with great sensitivity and some good advisors may not be the best judges of what local Episcopal worship needs to be--and few bishops have these skills. There will be a need for increased trust in the church’s members and in the Holy Sprit, a releasing of the traditional tight control, and a lot of frank and discerning conversation across the wider Church to guide the development of appropriate liturgies.
The finished resolution A106 rolled in concern that new rites uphold the ministries of all the baptized and their diverse cultures, and that the Standing Committee on Liturgy and Music draw into conversation bishops and the whole Church about local initiatives for worship, developing frameworks for this dialogue, and considering the canonical implications. A national website will become a vehicle for collecting, editing, and disseminating liturgical materials authorized by diocesan bishops where they originate. There are funds in the new budget to begin this work.
Gradually, the Church is coming to awareness that honoring our multicultural life together is not about translating Anglo materials into other languages, but about allowing, understanding, and celebrating the upswelling of the Holy Spirit in varied ways. Discerning how we may treasure our largely English and Anglo-U.S. Church traditions while relinquishing control and fear and embracing the new things that God is up to in and beyond the Church will be one of the most challenging tasks of the next decade and century.