"Suicide by governance"?

Episcopal Cafe's take on the PB's remarks

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori made some provocative remarks in her opening statement to the meeting of the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church, which concludes today in Salt Lake City. ENS has the story.

Here are a couple of passages worth examining:

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori challenged the Episcopal Church's Executive Council Oct. 24 to avoid "committing suicide by governance."

Jefferts Schori said that the council and the church face a "life-or-death decision," describing life as "a renewed and continually renewing focus on mission" and death as "an appeal to old ways and to internal focus" which devotes ever-greater resources to the institution and its internal conflicts.

Does it seem that the presiding bishop is suggesting that the Episcopal Church's democratic governing structure is responsible for its numerical decline? If so, does that seem accurate? And if it seems accurate, what should be done about it?

"We need some structural change across the Episcopal Church," she said. "Almost everywhere I go I hear dioceses wrestling with this; dioceses addressing what they often think of as their own governance handcuffs, the structures that are preventing them from moving more flexibly into a more open future."

http://www.episcopalcafe.com/lead/episcopal_church/suicide_by_governance.html