Resolution B:
Amend Canons II & III

Require Anti-Racism
Training  Certification
for Clergy and Delegates to Convention

 

Status

On October 28th, 2023, the 174th Convention amended the canons, effective January 1, 2024, as follows:

Resolved, That, effective January 1, 2024, the following new sections be added to Canons II and III following sections 2.02 and 3.02, and the existing and following sections be renumbered accordingly:

(Added language is in bold italic text)

Canon II. Clerical Members of Convention.

Sec. 2.03. Anti-Racism Training and Certification.
At least 30 days before the first day of the Convention, clerical Members must complete Anti-Racism and Racial Reconciliation coursework managed and utilized for diocesan training programs by the Bishop’s Office. Training certification will be valid for 36 months from the coursework’s completion date.

Canon III. Lay Delegates to Convention.

Sec. 3.03. Anti-Racism Training and Certification.
At least 30 days before the first day of the Convention, Delegates and alternates must complete Anti-Racism and Racial Reconciliation coursework managed and utilized for diocesan training programs by the Bishop’s Office. Training certification will be valid for 36 months from the coursework’s completion date.

Explanation:

In 2020, I wrote Resolution C009 to the 80th General Convention in Baltimore which passed and enacted in the House of Deputies. If approved, this requirement would become effective for the 175th Convention of the Diocese of California in 2024. Although many of us have participated in the Sacred Ground series and other anti-racism programs, Church Next’s Becoming Beloved Community is the diocesan training curriculum that we are currently proposing.

This spring, the Rocky Mountain PBS station released a documentary titled “This is {Not} Who We Are” regarding the issues of Institutional Racism” in Boulder, Colorado, a community that prides itself on being Progressive. Likewise, we in the San Francisco Bay Area are not immune to the problem of systemic racism and need to continue with our own efforts to combat it at every level of the Church.