April 12, 2008
By Mary Frances Schjonberg

Participants at the Episcopal Communicators 35th annual meeting heard calls April 10 and 11 to help change the political discourse of the United States and to stake a claim in emerging online virtual communities.

On the final evening of the meeting April 11, Communicators honored their colleagues' work in 2007 with the 28th annual Polly Bond Awards. Top honors, known as the General Excellence Award, went to four publications.

Episcopal Life (Robert Williams, director of Episcopal Life Media, and Jerry Hames, editor emeritus) won in the Newspapers/Periodicals, Churchwide Group or Agency category.

The Diocese of Massachusetts' Episcopal Times (Tracy Sukraw, editor, writer, and Victoria Blaine-Wallace, designer) won in the Newspapers/Periodicals, Dioceses above 12,000 category.

The Episcopal Diocese of Southern Ohio's "Interchange" newspaper (Richelle Thompson, editor; Bishop Thomas E. Breidenthal, publisher; Julie Murray, assistant editor) won in the Newspapers/Periodicals, Dioceses below 12,000 category.

The Polly Bond Awards acknowledge excellence and achievement in the ministry of church communication. Their namesake was a much-beloved director of communications for the Diocese of Ohio.

The complete award list is available here.

The Communicators' conference began April 9 at the Hotel Deca in Seattle's University District. About 120 people, including 43 first-time attendees, explored the conference's theme of "Emerging Communications for an Emerging Church" through plenary addresses, workshops, worship and networking. The conference ended April 12 with worship after the organization's annual business meeting. Coverage of the first day of the conference is available here.

Episcopal Communicators includes nearly 200 people with communication responsibilities in the Episcopal Church at congregational, diocesan, regional, and national levels in both print and electronic media.

Also during the annual meeting, Sean McConnell, communications officer for Diocese of California, and Beckett Stokes, director of communications in the Diocese of Colorado, were elected to the organization's board of directors. They will succeed Janet Kawamoto of the Diocese of Los Angeles and the Rev. Peter Strimer of the Diocese of Olympia.

On April 10, David Domke, head of the University of Washington's Journalism Department in the School of Communications and author of "The God Strategy: How Religion Became a Political Weapon," opened the day's sessions with a presentation on the fusion of religious and political rhetoric in the U.S.

Domke told conference participants that politics in the United States today "is defined by a calculated, deliberate and political use of faith that is unprecedented in American history."

The Rev. Matthew Moretz, who is known for his church-related "webisodes" posted on YouTube here, told the conference on April 11 that the communicators can help the Episcopal Church embrace what he called "the new social world" of the internet in ways that "incarnate the Gospel in this virtual space."

"We're all fumbling about how to be present here," Moretz said of the world of YouTube and social networking. "We're all God's children here -- mediated but real."

Domke told the conference that his research is motivated by U.S. politicians' use of references to God and faith that culminated in George W. Bush's post-September 11 speeches. He noted that politicians who "put the stamp of God" on their positions can effectively close down all debate about those positions, in part because "when you disagree politically today you are -- to some degree -- disagreeing about faith."

Tracing what he argued as the deliberate decision of conservative politicians and people of faith in the late 1970s to more explicitly fuse historic ties between faith and U.S. public life, Domke said that campaign "changed our country fundamentally." The fusion was at first a phenomena of conservative elements in the Republican Party, but Democrats are now forced to respond in kind, he said.

"Today's religious environment is highly politicized on both sides of the aisle," Domke said.

Domke contended that this environment is contrary to the landscape envisioned by the founders of the United States. The founders saw faith -- what he described as a bland deism -- as only part of the story of the new nation, not its defining quality, he said. He noted that many early citizens did not want to repeat their experiences of the religious oppression from which they had fled.

While the Declaration of Independence is what Domke called a "prophetic document" grounded in references to God's call, the U.S. Constitution is devoid of mention of God. "They kept faith at arm's length in that governing document," he said.

Domke also criticized the linkage of political and religious rhetoric in response to terrorist acts, contending that "we have stepped right into the 'clash of civilizations' mythology" in ways that he said must please terrorists such as Osama bin Laden.

He argued that skillful people with access to the media must begin to break that linkage so that the founders' vision can be restored. He said progressive people, especially those of faith, must learn how to frame the debate in the ways that conservatives have for the last several decades.

Noting that "language does create reality," Domke argued that "it's not going to change if we're just thoughtful and concerned."

Moretz told the conference that people who operate in the virtual world of the internet's social-networking sites are not opting out of reality. They experience real social interaction and real emotional reactions. They experience community, he said.

"We should be embracing this social fact," Moretz said, arguing that both lay and ordained Episcopalians can preside over these new "gathering[s] of humanity" in ways that can show what it means to be the body of Christ in new places.

"The story is the same but the territory is new," he told conference participants, alluding later during a workshop to the way that St. Paul used the infrastructure of Roman roads to spread the Gospel.

Moretz suggested that communicators who want to operate as people of faith in what he called the frontier territory of the internet must have an online persona that is authentic and points to "the real you" so that they can bring a sense of being places of stability on the web.

"Our gift to these other worlds is our integrity," he said.

To be what Moretz called "the amplified presence of the body of Christ" in the virtual world requires mastering the language of short-form video, he said. His scripts are about 400 words long for videos that run three to four minutes.

"It takes focus and clarity to be brief," he said. "Acquiring this capacity is valuable -- worth developing."

Video bloggers must also be willing to exist in what he called "the refiner's fire" of comment and criticism that results almost immediately from any posting to the web, Moretz said. Criticism "is a great blessing" that "can shape us and improve us" and the work, he said.

Incarnating the Gospel and being authentic spiritual leaders in the virtual world does not necessarily mean bringing new members to a specific parish, said Moretz, who was ordained in 2006, is curate of Christ Church in Rye, New York, and does his online ministry from that base.

He said video blogging can be a way to tell the story of the Episcopal Church's vision of Christianity that works because of its traditions, not despite them. In addition, his YouTube videos have "created relationships and energy on another level" that he admitted he still doesn't fully understand.

For instance, Moretz said he wrestles with the implications of the pastoral relationships that develop through his online contacts with people who respond to his videos. While priests normally terminate their pastoral relationships when they leave a congregation, he said he wonders when such online relationships should end.

In the end, Moretz said, any work Episcopalians do in the online world ought always to point to the community of the body of Christ, the face-to-face contact and human touch that comes with people "gathering together in reality."

Episcopal News Service
The Rev. Mary Frances Schjonberg is Episcopal Life Media correspondent for Episcopal Church governance, structure, and trends, as well as news of the dioceses of Province II. She is based in Neptune, New Jersey, and New York City.