Squirming in South Bend

“They squirmed a little at the method, but then they saw it was necessary and they dug it.”

That was the way one youth delegate described the disruption of the special general convention of the Episcopal Church this month when black spokesmen for the Black Economic Development Conference told startled delegates they wanted $200,000 immediately and without strings.

The convention squirmed and struggled with the racial confrontation for four days; indeed, the matter dominated—and exhausted—everyone. Whether or not the 900 official delegates appreciated the militant methods (they included almost every trick in the book) they “dug it” enough to come up with the money—with a couple of strings.

This was only the second special general convention of the 3.6-million-member denomination (the last was in New York in 1821), and it was called to consider business left over from the Seattle general convention of 1967 (see October 13 issue, page 40).

The South Bend gathering, whose setting was the lovely lawns and ivied halls of Catholic Notre Dame University, was billed as the conference of structure (also mission and authority); press advances said organizational and legislative changes would be hammered out to shape the Episcopal Church for modern times. Instead, it turned out to be the convention of the Black Manifesto, the BEDC, and the “dump the military system” movement.

It also was the convention of compromise. And suspense.

The blacks got the money, two AWOL servicemen got de facto sanctuary for their opposition to the Viet Nam war, and conservatives (and some moderates) got the mitigated satisfaction of seeing the convention refuse to give reparations directly to the James Forman-affiliated BEDC. Hardly anyone was fully satisfied.

The epochal convention began mildly enough. Presiding Bishop John E. Hines opened a colorful communion service by pleading for an end to divisiveness in the church. He warned of “increasing danger of polarization” in “a time of domestic and international ferment.”*

The next morning, the House of Bishops, supported by the House of Deputies, in their first item of business, upheld participation by three “minority” groups at the convention. Each of the church’s 107 dioceses had been invited to send one youth, one woman, and one ethnic minority person as extra delegates. More than 200 came. Previously, no special groups had taken part in Episcopal conventions.

Delegates then voted to turn most of the first three days of the convention into free-wheeling work committees and joint plenary sessions. The extra delegates were allowed voice and vote, but canonical restrictions prohibited them from participating in official legislative sessions.

Only a few hours after the blacks and youth were accorded a new voice in the traditionally staid denomination, a handful disrupted a session of the conference, and an outsider wrested the microphone away from Hines when he tried to restore order. The Rev. Muhammed Kenyatta (who successfully won a pledge of $50,000 for black students at a disruption last month of the National Student Association meeting), got in his licks for the BEDC and demanded $200,000 of the numbed Episcopalians. Kenyatta, who claims to be both a Baptist clergyman and a Black Muslim, is a national vice-president of the BEDC and appears to be its prime spokesman since Forman left the country for reported “health reasons.”

Next day, the convention scrapped its scheduled agenda to give full consideration to the manifesto, the BEDC, and the demands of its own 253 black clergy, who as a body supported Kenyatta and the $200,000 bid. After protracted haggling, parliamentary maneuvering, and impassioned pleas stretching over several days, the House of Deputies reversed an earlier vote and decided that it would approve the money for the BEDC after all as long as the National Committee of Black Churchmen (see November 22, 1968, issue, page 40), a less militant, ecumenical Negro group, acted as middleman.

The House of Bishops agreed, but it was clearly understood the money would be shunted to the BEDC after assurance the programs funded would be nonviolent.

Deeply disappointed, the blacks said the church had “copped out,” that it had failed to trust blacks; they even compared it to “pimps who push dope,” because it failed to fund directly the BEDC (a group that has espoused possible violent overthrow of the government).

Yet, for all the angry rhetoric, the BEDC won a victory it badly needed to stay alive, and a concession no other mainline denomination has been willing to grant. Formal recognition by the Episcopal Church—and $200,000—may stoke the militant fires of BEDC through the fall and winter; almost all national church bodies already have met for the year and without exception have spurned reparations demands.

Reaction to the unprecedented action varied. Deputies’ President John Coburn called the convention “perhaps the significant turning point in the history of our church.” Even the Rev. Frederick B. Williams, president of the Episcopal Union of Black Clergy and Laity, admitted it was “a little ray of hope.” Others declared the church had had it for “submitting to blackmail.”

Almost all delegates nervously monitored news coverage and worried about “the reaction from folks back home,” already backing off from supporting controversial Episcopal programs—let alone the manifesto-tainted BEDC.

Arkansas Bishop Robert Brown was representative of those opposing funding or recognition of the BEDC: “I have listened desperately for the voice of Christ in presentations of both houses. I have a cry in my heart, but I cannot accept a clenched fist as the ultimate arbiter of church problems.”

Behind the scenes, a cadre of well-prepared radical Episcopal priests and blacks worked hard to revolutionize the conference. A reporter could glean a fairly accurate idea of what would happen by listening to what these leaders told youth and black delegates at late-night caucuses.

“Let’s see more bare feet,” goaded the Rev. William Wendt, rector of activist St. Stephen and the Incarnation Church in inner-city Washington, as he urged greater “visibility” and “youth presence” for the peace issue. On schedule, the AWOL servicemen were flown to the convention secretly and barefoot youth supporters backed their request for “symbolic sanctuary.” Nearly half the convention also informally endorsed their cause.

Among techniques used by radicals to mold opinion and control the convention were: disruption (Kenyatta); walkout (Canon Junius Carter after the Deputies initially refused outright support of the BEDC); demonstration (parade of wooden crosses, psychedelic flowers, and placards accompanying the servicemen); infiltration (making sure youth and black delegates injected their views into all fifty-three work committees); literature campaigns (Issues, sponsored by the Episcopal Peace Fellowship, sample: “Up Against the Wall, Mother Church”); threat—which some called prophecy—(Kenyatta: “We’re the last of the talkers …” an altar call (asking supporters of the AWOL servicemen to come forward); boycott (the blacks refused to join whites for communion one morning); cheering sections (a chorus of “right on!” from a cluster of blacks during Carter’s outburst).

By the fourth night, after the Bishops had supported the Deputies on the BEDC issue, most delegates had reached the point of physical, emotional, and spiritual exhaustion. Both houses found it difficult to buckle down to the business of administration or structure. Preliminary skirmishes on such matters included the format and constituency of future conventions (the next general one will be in October, 1970, in Houston), establishment of a deployment office and computer bank for assigning clergymen, and encouragement for self-supporting spare-time and weekend priests and deacons.

A move to put the church on record in favor of presidential anmesty for conscientious draft-evaders and military deserters passed the House of Bishops but was stalled before reaching the Deputies. And a resolution that would have asked an end to the draft “at the earliest possible moment” also died in the closing hours of the six-day convention for the same reason.

Trial use of a special liturgy designed by the Consultation on Church Union was approved by both houses.

In the long run, incipient modifications in church administration and structure launched at Notre Dame may cast long shadows of change over the church. For now, the racial confrontation is the overwhelming issue for the Episcopal Church, and perhaps, all churches.

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