Why the Church Needs DEI
Bishop Dan Martins’ latest Covenant piece, “Grace in the Church’s Tensions,” made me think about diversity, equity, and inclusion, the bugaboo of the Trump administration. It seems to me that people in our church all welcome DEI in the political context and work to uphold it, but perhaps, as he says, some do not practice it in the church.
I’ve known plenty of intolerant people in and out of the Episcopal Church. Clergy from conservative seminaries would not be allowed to take positions in some dioceses. LGBT clergy would get the same cold shoulder in others.
Anglo-Catholic clergy once were not welcome in some dioceses, just as evangelicals were not in others. Different issue, same intolerance. Just as the administration is witch-hunting DEI and making itself even less effective at governing, so too the church becomes less capable of fulfilling its mandate toward all people.
No position is inclusive—only grace perfects nature, after all. Furthermore, if all we are willing to do is tolerate people, then we violate the command of the One we all claim to follow. “Love one another as I have loved you”—and sometimes even he had a hard time doing that. “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you.” He forgave them from the cross.
And being unwilling to listen to those with whom we disagree also fails Jesus, for we are to love God with all our mind. Without diversity, equity, and inclusion in the church we are incapable of that, for the mind requires questions to function, and must not shy away from the answers, as unpleasant as that may be sometimes.
Bishop Dan has been and will always be my friend.
Bishop Pierre Whalon
Linas, France
Pierre Whalon was Bishop of the Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe from 2001 to 2019.
Sydney is Shrinking Too
The recent report in The Living Church on the election of a new Australian primate included the claim that “the church’s evangelical dioceses, especially the Diocese of Sydney, have grown significantly as its more progressive dioceses have declined.”
This would surprise the Diocese of Sydney, which has been admirably transparent about its experience of decline: according to its own figures, attendance in Sydney dropped 7 percent in absolute terms across the decade to 2023, or 14 percent when adjusted relative to population increase (see tinyurl.com/sydneynumbers).
Decline in religious observance in Australia, like that experienced in the United States, is no respecter of parties.
The Very Rev. Andrew McGowan
Dean of the Berkeley Divinity School at Yale
Member of the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Australia (2004-14)
TLC has revised the story to say that “the church’s evangelical dioceses, especially the Diocese of Sydney, have shrunk less dramatically than its more progressive dioceses.”
Gaza and Our Church’s Silence
In a meeting with Michael Curry when he was Bishop of North Carolina, and interfaith leaders urging support for equal rights and peace in what we’ve called the Holy Land, I was encouraged that the bishop’s recognition that a visit to Palestine/Israel reminded him of the 1950s in the American South—that is, segregation and struggles for rights denied.Recent embrace of excuses for land theft, dispossession, and now forthright murder of unarmed civilians has disqualified, in my view, any church that fails to apply the words of Jesus, today, regarding Israel/Palestine.
Many denominations have joined the call for embargo of U.S. arms transfer to Israel in view of U.S. law, international human rights standards, and basic humanity. Where is the Episcopal Church, and how can this body recover from being sidetracked over a monumental denial of mercy, if not justice?
Sadly, the occasional pilgrimage to Israel seems to elicit little more than a prayer to delegate to God what Desmond Tutu identified as our roles and responsibilities. “We are God’s hands,” Tutu said. Abundant golden calves distract our focus. Building funds, new church organ, you name it.
I hope advocacy at high levels can recover memory of who and what we are, or can be, and that the contributions of decorated Army veteran Anthony Aguilar can remind us of our strengths just as he remembered his own. His description of the use of food distribution in Gaza as a cruel lie, illuminated by his Gaza encounters and experience, are now watched by many of us in interviews, long and short, online.
Jerry Markatos
Pittsboro, North Carolina
