Approximately 130 attended the meeting, including the Rt. Rev. Robert Ihloff of the Diocese of Maryland; several staff members from the Episcopal Church Center, including the Rt. Rev. Arthur Williams, acting Coordinator for the Ethnic Congregational Development; Maureen Shea, the director of the Washington Office of the Episcopal Church; the Rev. Susan Russell, Executive Director of Claiming the Blessing; and the Rev. Michael Hopkins, former president of Integrity.

As last year, the Caucus’s rhetoric on the war on terrorism, and particularly the war with Iraq, was extremist in tone. One article included with the registration materials equated the United States with Jack the Ripper.

Rather than offering a critique of American and Coalition military activity over the past few years rooted in Christian theology and ethics, the Urban Caucus offered a February 9, 2004 article from the far-left magazine The Nation. The article, “The New American Century” by Arundhati Roy, claims that American neo-imperialism is based in the “New Racism” and is conducted for the profit of multinational corporations.

“To applaud the US Army’s capture of Saddam Hussein, and therefore in retrospect to justify its invasion and occupation of Iraq, is like deifying Jack the Ripper for disemboweling the Boston Strangler,” said Roy in her article, which was heartily endorsed by the Rev. Canon Ed Rodman, Canon Missioner for the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts and a coordinator of the Urban Caucus.

At last year’s Urban Caucus meeting, held in Chicago, Rodman accused the Justice Department and Attorney General John Ashcroft of sending “agent provocateurs to infiltrate your organizations in order to discredit you, and then they will kill you.”

The Nation article compared Secretary of State Colin Powel and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice to the turkey pardoned annually by the President as a part of Thanksgiving holiday celebrations. “A few carefully bred turkeys - the local elites of various countries, a community of wealthy immigrants, investment bankers, the occasional Colin Powell or Condoleezza Rice…are given absolution [from the allegedly racist policies of the United States]” said Roy. “The remaining millions lose their jobs, are evicted from their homes, have their water and electricity connections cut and dies of AIDS.”

Episcopal Peace Fellowship Luncheon

Much of this critique was echoed at the Episcopal Peace Fellowship luncheon, an annual event held in conjunction with the Urban Caucus. The speaker was Elizabeth McAlister, a life-long peace activist who is proud of having spent over four years in jail for civil disobedience - including trespassing on US military property to protect against US nuclear weapons.

McAlister’s speech was a rambling laundry list of supposed evil conducted by the United States against the Global South, including war and environmental destruction. She asserted that the war in Iraq was rooted in racism and economic greed. She also claimed that the United States was responsible for between 1,500,000 and 2,000,000 deaths in Iraq due to war and the UN economic sanctions.

Extreme pessimism regarding the environment marked her speech. “Degradation of the earth is nearly complete,” McAlister advised. “We control the snows and rains and weather.”

An odd absence from her presentation was any mention of 9/11 or the war on terrorism as precursors to the Afghanistan and Iraq campaigns. In fact, McAlister’s speech was a virtual copy of the one she gave to the National Conference on Civil Disobedience at American University in 2000, predating the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Keynote Address

In his keynote address, Rodman expressed concern for the future of the Urban Caucus, and implored the group to find new issues to tackle. According to Rodman, if the group did not continue to move forward, it might as well “declare victory” and shut itself down. Rodman offered the twin themes of Globalization and American Neo-imperialism for small group discussion as possibilities for Urban Caucus action.

“Corrupt systems cannot be reformed. They must be replaced,” said Rodman, though he did not elaborate on what economic system he would like see supplant globalization.

In small group discussions, however, participants were open about their uncertainty concerning globalization. Some participants sensed that there were both positive and negative aspects of globalization, though none were willing to defend the proposition. Many around the table appeared to advocate economic protectionism and an American-jobs-first agenda.

Anger and Impatience with Orthodox Anglicans

Lingering anger and impatience with theologically orthodox Anglicans who opposed the consecration of Gene Robinson as the first non-celibate homosexual bishop was evident at the meeting. The election of Gene Robinson was a cause to which the Urban Caucus was strongly committed.

Rodman gave voice to the attitude of many in the Urban Caucus toward orthodox Anglicans. It was the right thing for Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold to recognize that the votes at General Convention caused a great deal of pain, Rodman explained. “But I have a hard time recognizing that pain because it is self inflicted by their misogyny and homophobia.”

Later he opined that, “there are a few people he would like to encourage to move on from the church.” Not everyone at the meeting was quite so diplomatic in his or her opposition. One attendee, upon hearing of my affiliation with the IRD called me a “f***ing homophobe.”

Concerning those who support biblical sexual standards, several of the attendees of the meeting argued that “they lost, and they need either to leave or get over it.”

But for the most part, the Urban Caucus’s response to the crisis in global Anglicanism and in the Episcopal Church was the same as the response by the national office of the Episcopal Church - to try to pretend that it does not exist.

Erik Nelson is a Research Associate for Episcopal Action, a project of the Institute on Religion and Democracy. www.ird-renew.org