NEWS from the 238th DIOCESAN CONVENTION

October 27-28, 2023

There is much to share from this year’s diocesan convention held at the Double Tree by Hilton Hotel in Danvers. Our parish delegates were among some 300 lay and clergy delegates attending from throughout the diocese. There was much on the minds of all present, Bishop Alan Gates noted:

“Economic uncertainty; poisonous and paralyzing political polarization; COVID fatigue; more and yet more gun massacres; warfare in both Europe and the Middle East, threatening to expand. How could we not be anxious? And in the church, so many of our old models are creaking and groaning, no longer quite serving us the way they once did. There is surely no way to face into these challenges and anxieties except to face them together."

Bishop Gates also spoke of the diocesan work towards racial equity:

"There are varieties of intention and methodology that are attached to the term reparations. In the resolution which you have before you today, I draw your attention to the first Resolved, which articulates carefully the intent and purpose for the Reparations Fund in our context in this diocese. It reads, in part:

'Focused on systemic solutions to present-day racial disparities whose origins lie in the sin of American slavery, the Fund’s mission is to counteract and redress ongoing social, economic, educational, judicial, medical, political, and other harm caused to African Americans and Afro-Caribbeans. The purpose of the Fund is to provide a vehicle for our diocese to come together in acknowledgement of our communal responsibility as followers of Jesus Christ for repairing the legacies of American slavery. These legacies [have] harmed many Black people through several centuries, and they continue to harm people of all races in the form of persistent fractures within the Beloved Community….'[Convention Handbook, p. H-41]

While there are other approaches to reparations, in our context the intent is to address these legacies in ways that are not so much individual as communal, not so much transactional as relational. I believe that the principles and structures in the proposed resolution will enable us to do that, and I am grateful."

The work underway throughout the diocese on racial justice offers inspiration and courage for our parish (to the work of our Becoming Beloved Community ministry) to work here in Ipswich to sponsor public conversations and special public events so as to help further bend the long arc of history toward justice.

Full transcript and video recording of the address given by Bishop Alan M. Gates at the 238th annual Diocesan Convention on Saturday, Oct. 28, 2023 found here: