So, I spent a great deal of the weekend attending the annual convention of my denomination. Really, it’s a church, not a denomination, but that's an insider's distinction these days. When fewer and fewer of the young people with whom I work know The Lord's Prayer, the difference between a church and a denomination is obtuse.
This was my 38th convention as a working member of The Episcopal Church. I've been attending these for so long that, at my first convention, we were still The Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States. Later, we became The Episcopal Church of the United States [ECUSA, for short], until it was changed yet again to The Episcopal Church.
I’ve always found this latest self-title a little reverse-colonial, as our world-wide communion includes The Episcopal Church of Scotland, The Episcopal Church in Jerusalem, The Episcopal Church of Sudan, etc. By dropping "of the United States", it seems as if we're saying that we're the only true Episcopal Church. Not that it matters, I suppose, as the rest of the Anglican Communion doesn't really take us seriously any longer.
Such discussions are beyond consideration these days, however, as we are now inheriting from the world of higher education the latest in virtue trends: Social Justice and Identity Politics. We always seem to be about seven years downstream of university culture, so this is about right. It'll be the rage for the next few years until it is replaced by the next great concern and moral panic.
So, here's what I experienced along with one or two things that I noticed:
Younger clergy are remarkably condescending towards older clergy, especially the "boomers", a word that carries for them a negative connotation. What's really splendid is they fit this naked ageism into their grand statements about acceptance, diversity, and respecting the dignity of every human being. I suppose that it's another tragic example of why we no longer matter, but I find it amusing, anyway.Ah, well. 105 weeks of this left.
This happened only once, but the reaction was so positive that I imagine it's a harbinger of the future. One of the clergy, who is particularly fond of being in the newspapers and getting "likes" on social media, stood at the microphone and used "frickin'" in a sentence, a borderline vulgarity that received a smattering of applause, and followed it up with "s**t". That received more applause. I remember the elegance of language that used to be heard at conventions, but that's just me being a boomer, I guess. He had a very self-satisfied smile when he left the microphone. When I noted to the person seated next to me that he had neither asked a question nor spoken in support of a resolution, and wondered what he was doing at the microphone, it was observed, "He's showing us how cool he is. He's one of the cool kids, now." Oh.
I used to enjoy convention when some truly educated men and women would struggle theologically with the issues of the day. Now, my younger/newer colleagues sound like the players in junior high student government.
There was one classic "boomer" moment, though, when another colleague took to a microphone to scold the entire room about consulting what he called our "social devices" while people were taking to the microphone to speak. It was remarkable in that he didn't seem to realize that, as we are now "paperless", all of the resolutions were on a smartphone app and that many of us were taking notes on the resolutions with our "social devices". His castigation was taken with quiet patience, in a truly Connecticut manner.
One of the young clergy, clearly seeing this as his woke moment to #FightForFifteen, stood to lecture us on how new clergy, who are salaried, actually make less than $15 an hour. He was ready to get frothy about it, until a boomer pointed out to him that he had forgotten to include the housing allowance that we are given, which pushes that hourly figure way past $15. I was a little troubled by his inability to read a simple budget and, had I been his boss, I would have reduced his salary to the equivalent of $15 an hour. Red-faced, he returned to his seat.
This was the second time this year that the powers-that-be, who remind us to practice self-care, thought that the best way for us to meet in counsel was to spend twelve hours sitting in chairs and mostly listening to people talk at us. [Should that be twelve "frickin'" hours? I should ask Father Woke once he comes down from his narcissism high.] What sort of glutes exercises do these people do that enables them to sit for so long without muscle aches and body derangement?