Beyond the Page: Epiphany West Dares Anglicans to Be "Dangerous"

By Jonathan Callard

"We really have lost our stories," Kate Lewis said. "We've let the media tell them. We don't tell our stories anymore."

Lewis, an Episcopal priest from Hermosa Beach, Calif., joined other clergy and lay people at the 2004 Epiphany West conference in Berkeley, Calif. They came to learn, as keynoter Steven Charleston put it, to reclaim their stories and "speak out with the authority of Jesus" through word and image, song and movement. They came to re-imagine the reign of God. How could they share that vision of justice and reconciliation with others? What limited them? What freed them?

The five-day conference, entitled "Voicing the Vision: Imagination and Prophetic Speech," took place at the end of January at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific (CDSP). According to John Kater, CDSP professor and director of the seminary's Center for Anglican Learning and Leadership (CALL), Epiphany West has grown over a decade from being a small seminary gathering into a large national event with a strong global emphasis. Past conferences have featured the bishop of Mexico and the archbishop of Cape Town as keynoters. Over 150 people from across the world gathered this year to both teach and to learn.

According to Don Quinton, a postulant for holy orders from the Diocese of San Diego and a conference participant, his discernment is endless. "To submit to God means to tune to God's frequency or else you'll have a lot of static," he said.

The conference began with several classes, which built toward four keynote presentations. In a class on imagination and discernment, Debra Farrington dared everyone to be still. Farrington, an author and editorial director at Morehouse Publishing, guided participants through several steps outlined in her new book Hearing with the Heart and its accompanying reader Learning to Hear with the Heart: Meditations for Discerning God's Call. In prayer, she said, it was important to let go of a "God Do" list (our list of what God "should do for us") and to learn to be quiet, because "God is loathe to interrupt us when we're talking." Participants broke into small groups and did a lectio divina exercise with a gospel reading, finding places of instruction, confession, and guidance. They revisited the importance of paying attention to the body and differentiating between gifts and skills. They discussed ways of study beyond mere book reading -- a full use of the senses and the arts that could change how God appeared to them. Above all, Farrington reminded the class, they were in this journey together. It was in community that they could balance the spiritual tensions of reason versus imagination, of patience versus action.

According to Don Quinton, a postulant for holy orders from the Diocese of San Diego and a conference participant, his discernment is endless. "To submit to God means to tune to God's frequency or else you'll have a lot of static," he said.

Anna Maria Korathu, rector of St. George's Church in Seattle, Wash., said she planned to use Farrington's book with her congregation during Lent. She was especially grateful for the book's strong grounding in scripture.

Other conference classes focused on the links between creativity and spirituality. Jay Johnson, a theologian, writer, and former CDSP lecturer, spoke on the poetic imagination found in the Bible. Thomas Carey, a brother in the Episcopal Order of St. Francis and a poet, writer, and actor, gave a drama workshop. Barbara Oliver, artistic director and co-founder of Berkeley's Aurora Theatre Company, encouraged participants in her storytelling class to mine their own personal stories and make connections to who they are today.

Grant Schettler, a sixty-three year old layperson from St. Mark's Cathedral in Salt Lake City, had recently returned to religion after a long dry spell. A first-timer at Epiphany West, he was in the middle of discerning God's call to him after taking summer classes at the Graduate Theological Union (GTU). He marveled at Johnson's presentation of the Bible through a poetic lens. "I was speechless; I couldn't talk," he said.

The idea of "a white man's religion" and the "noble savage" were myths that infected each of us today. "Christianity is the fulfillment of the original covenant made with my ancestors," [Charleston] said.

The main body of the conference started with a bang on January 29th. Steven Charleston, dean of the Episcopal Divinity School and former bishop of Alaska, electrified the crowd with a battle cry for justice and inclusivity in the church. Focusing on the many similarities between the Anglican tradition and Native American spirituality, Charleston made it clear that he was not "some relic of the past," nor was he a "cultural captive of Europeans." The idea of "a white man's religion" and the "noble savage" were myths that infected each of us today. "Christianity is the fulfillment of the original covenant made with my ancestors," he said.

Charleston called the audience to task for being too "apologetic, dismissive, or fearful" when it came to standing up to injustice. He likened to forces of wealth and power that had nearly wiped out Native Americans in the past to the present-day forces threatening to divide Episcopalians. The ordination of the first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church, he said, symbolized a "great shift in the tectonic plates of Anglicanism." Now was the time for all people, regardless of race or economic status, both the oppressed and the oppressor, to band together under the banner of love and reconciliation.

People were clearly moved by his message of unity. A male priest in the audience responded to Charleston's altar call. "Sometimes I know what I have to do," he said, speaking into a microphone, "but I just get weak in the knees."

The only way to fight injustice, Charleston replied, is with love. Jesus did not form a political power block. Love, he admitted, is "hard because it seems so weak." But it carries a moral power. "We must have absolute integrity in the way that we conduct ourselves."

Tom Chapman, a Phoenix chaplain in pastoral care and an eight-time attendee of Epiphany West, called Charleston a "bishop of all the church" and "a calming spirit in the middle of contentious conversation."

Citing the Hebrew lesson from Jeremiah, Morgan reminded listeners that it is the relationship with the giver, not with the gift, that one must seek. God told a bewildered Jeremiah he would put words in his mouth. Prophesying for God is "not dependent on our own faithfulness, but God's," Morgan said.

The energy from Charleston's talk carried over into the Conference Eucharist on Thursday evening. CDSP president Donn Morgan, an Old Testament professor, preached on the role of imagination in following God's call. Our tangible efforts to "concretize" the kingdom of God through various media were always limited, he said, because they ruled out the unseen aspects of faith. But citing the Hebrew lesson from Jeremiah, Morgan reminded listeners that it is the relationship with the giver, not with the gift, that one must seek. God told a bewildered Jeremiah he would put words in his mouth. Prophesying for God is "not dependent on our own faithfulness, but God's," Morgan said. Worshippers sang songs from various cultural traditions, including the South African hymn "We are marching in the light of God." Their hands raised in the air, people repeatedly sang the verses in English, South African, and Spanish, urged on by drums and hand claps. The leaders of worship paraded around the refectory, clearly unwilling to let the conference's spirit of renewal die so quickly.

The dancing, clapping, and drumming continued Friday morning with keynote presenter Masankho Banda, a storyteller from Malawi. He challenged participants to find new ways to receive and share the Word of God that pushed "beyond the sacred page" into the realm of movement. Soon people found themselves out of their chairs, following Banda in a welcome dance. Pressed by a clergy member who said she could not authentically follow Banda's tradition because of her European background, he responded, "It's not about doing the African thing, not about the Latin thing -- in all of our cultures, there are dances."

Draw on the wisdom of your own faith communities, he said. Find their particular stories and update the Gospel with them. No liturgy needed to be turned upside down, nor did all new ideas need to be implemented at once. "Don't change anything. Add," he reminded the gathering.

Banda struck a chord. "He put you in a whole different place to hear the beat of the drum," said Belle Mickelson, a postulant from the diocese of Alaska.

In his "Spirit in Poetry and Song" workshop, CDSP Biblical Studies professor Bill Countryman had participants moving to a different beat. "Talking about poetry is learning to listen," he explained. He led the class through a discussion of 17th century English lyric poems, set to the music of 20^th century English composer Benjamin Britten. The class concluded by listening to alt-rocker Joan Osborne's hit song "One of Us" -- one of the best explanations of the Incarnation he had ever heard, said Countryman.

Keynoter Laurie King, famed mystery novelist and graduate of the GTU and CDSP, talked about communicating with God through the written word. For King, the important thing was to let imagination do its work with the characters. She read her own version, or midrash, of the story of Jephthah's daughter (Judges 11). Just as we don't know why the figures of the Hebrew stories make the choices they do (why didn't Jephthah trust God in the story?), she admitted she didn't know how her fictional mystery characters would act until she put word to a page. Stories are stories, she said, because they allow us to draw our own powerful lessons from them. "There is nothing that kills a story faster than the smell of a soapbox," she added.

A strong sermon, just like a new dance or a new story or a new song, is one that pushes both society's envelope and the presenter and opens a door to justice, to a holy place.

Linda Clader, the CDSP homiletics professor whose new book Voicing the Vision: Imagination and Prophetic Preaching served as a catalyst for the conference, closed the week-long gathering with a nod to the preceding speakers. Like them, she approached preaching playing the role of a fool, daring to preach to each person in the congregation and say both the things that go unsaid and the wild things that go unconsidered -- "dangerous preaching," as she called it. A strong sermon, just like a new dance or a new story or a new song, is one that pushes both society's envelope and the presenter and opens a door to justice, to a holy place.

Epiphany West planners will continue facilitating groundbreaking conversations in next year's conference, entitled "Truth and Dialogue: Friends or Enemies -- Biblical Diversity in the Anglican Communion." Donn Morgan and noted church history scholar Frederica Harris Thompsett will join other speakers to address the hot topic of how people interpret the scriptures.

David Starr, a CDSP student and postulant in the Diocese of California, resonated with this year's imagination theme. Conferences like Epiphany West, he said, "teach us how to preach out of the box. . . Education is a box. If you live in it, you suffocate in it. Out of it, we flourish and things grow."

Jonathan Callard is a freelance writer living in Oakland, Calif. He maintains a regular online journal "Blog" on EveryVoice.net, and may be reached by email at jonathan@everyvoice.net.