The Anglican Church in North America is about meet in Texas, June 22-25, formally adopt a Constitution and Canons and install its first Archbishop and Primate, Robert Duncan.
Supposedly twenty-eight dioceses or diocese-like entities will come together to form this new church. ACNA will be called a Province, but it is unclear what it is a province OF. It is not a Province of the Anglican Communion. It will be a church and no doubt accorded church status by various other churches including churches in the Anglican Communion.
As yet we do not know what these twenty-eight dioceses/ entities are called, which are area and which are network entities, what sort of overlap there is among various entities, etc. The number 28 has been announced by ACNA. But numbers are just numbers. We know the sources for the episcopal leadership, but beyond that there has been very little said about merging various source ecclesial structures or building new dioceses out of existing congregations in particular areas. The Diocese of Western Anglicans and the Diocese of Cascadia seem to be entities of this sort.
Two expressions of hesitation about the whole thing have arisen in the past few days.
David Virtue has posted a letter from the head of the Anglican Catholic Church, in an article titled, "Anglican Catholic Church Primate Declines Invitation to attend ACNA Provincial Assembly."
From the Primate's letter: "In summary, then, we see in the ACNA the fundamental alterations in traditional Anglican faith, worship, order, and practice that led to the formation of our own Continuing Church in 1978. We would be glad to establish conversations with your ecclesial body in hopes that you may, having freed yourselves of the Episcopal Church, continue further on the same path by decisively breaking from a corrupt Anglican Communion and by returning to the central tradition of Christendom in all matters, including the male character of Holy Orders, the evil of abortion, and the indissolubility of sacramental marriage. We recommend to your prayerful attention the Affirmation of Saint Louis, which we firmly believe provides a sound basis for a renewed and fulfilled Anglicanism on our continent."
The Affirmation of Saint Louis has now re-entered the conversation as a determining agreement (can anyone say covenant?).
The Anglican Catholic Church was not part of the ACNA group, but the presence of the ACC Primate would have added more to the festivities as will the Metropolitan of the Orthodox Church of America if he comes. Be sure that there will be representatives of some of the non-Anglican Communion Anglican churches in the mix at picture taking time.
On a more immediate front Bishop John Rodgers of the Anglican Mission in America (AMiA) has written a brief arguing FOR the adoption of the Constitution and Canons by those gathered in Texas. His essay appears on the Common Cause Partnership web pages as "The ACNA Constitution - An Evangelical View The fact that Bishop Rodgers must make a plea for the constitution of ACNA is of some interest.
He says, "I am aware that there are several concerns articulated by various individuals concerning the Proposed Constitution and most particularly by Evangelicals concerning language about the Historic Episcopate being integral or inherent to the nature of the Church."
Evangelicals (and I suppose this means in part the Reformed Episcopal Church) in the ACNA community of churches seem to have some reservations about either the fact of bishops or their particular role in governance in ACNA.
So there is gnawing at the bone going on from both ends - some Anglican Catholic mutterings about those women, and some evangelical muttering about those bishops.
I doubt that these hesitations will bring things to a stand still. But, regarding the second of the hesitations, Bishop Rodgers warns, "If we do not agree with the Proposed Constitution at this founding Assembly then no Church is formed at this point." There will be a train to catch in Texas, whether it is as widely inclusive as it promises to be is unclear. Perhaps there will be separate coaches. Who knows who will get tickets to ride. And who knows where the train is headed?
6/01/2009
Moving On
There have been many things said about B033 and the need to move on beyond it. This 7-minute video by Integrity USA explains why the Episcopal Church needs to move beyond its de facto moratorium on additional gay and lesbian bishops during General Convention 2009 in Anaheim.
As we know, every episcopal election has its own issues and concerns. I believe the current Canons provide a sufficiently careful process to provide us with bishops who serve this church well and faithfully. Full stop.
Watch and listen:
As we know, every episcopal election has its own issues and concerns. I believe the current Canons provide a sufficiently careful process to provide us with bishops who serve this church well and faithfully. Full stop.
Watch and listen:
The Excess of the Spirit is like that: It frees everyone except the one who misses life in captivity.
I preached this last Sunday: 8 AM to thunder, lightening, hail, and crackling in the electrical system, and at 10 AM with a Baptism. This is what I had to say (with on the spot embellishments, of course.) Included here because I believe we Episcopalians are a Pentecostal people...if we just have the courage.
Sermon, Pentecost, 2009
If we Episcopalians had any courage at all, we would call ourselves Pentecostal…
Of course we are already: We call down the Holy Spirit on the bread and wine, we use oil for healing and ask the Spirit of God to give strength, we give double billing to the Holy Spirit in Baptism, complete with anointing and the invocation of the Holy Spirit, but still we don’t usually call our selves Pentecostal. If we had courage we’d say, “We are a Pentecostal Church!” The air would be electric with the possibilities.
If we are a Spirit Filled church, as well as a church that takes Scripture seriously (rather than literally or metaphorically), and take to being a community of about justice rather of conformity, all sorts of things are possible. Our young people could have visions, our old people dream dreams. We could old and young be filled with imagination, and leave the middle years to such trivia as getting along, getting ahead, making it, and so forth.
Why, we could be really imaginative – imagining what a loving and just community could look like – we’d talk about our visions and dreams as if they had present power.
We’d have “Holy Ghost” power. And having imagined it, we could do it. Why, we might even enjoy it!
We could say the beatitudes and live them out. Instead of merely mouthing them we could live them. You know the beatitudes:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
– and imagine - we could know with them that it was inevitable that God’s justice will win out. With Bishop Tutu we could proclaim that we have already won, we are only making the present conform to the reality of the future. We could take to the streets and dance….
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
- We could weep and stomp about and wail and get through it and find comfort in one another and in God.
“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
– We could kick back and have a little inheritance party… "Look," we would say, "see the view from OUR front yard… great sunset don’t you think. This beach is our beach, this land is our land… God gave it to all of us, his children, all of us."
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
– We could begin to think of abundance and not scarcity of righteousness and justice. We could give everyone all the justice they could digest, after all there is always more! You want justice? We’ve got it to spare. We’ll do justice here, there, everywhere.
“Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
– We could finally talk about what’s in it for me… give mercy get mercy; give bleakness and misery, get misery and bleak. We could just love mercy so much we would keep trying to give it away, only to realize that we kept getting it back.!
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
– We could learn to do one thing at a time (for as Kierkegaard said, purity of heart is to will one thing) and do it well:
when we dance we will dance,
when we weep we will weep,
when we praise God that is what we will be - Praise.
When we love we will be Love.
When we sleep, it will be as if we died.
When we rise up it will always be that great getting up morning.
Resurrection will happen, just like that!
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
-We could envision skipping through the garden as peace children, slipping the snake a soothing pet on the head, and wander off with Adam and Eve, and maybe the Fall could happen some other time. Wouldn't that be fine?
“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
-And the best for last, we could realize that persecution for justice as no surprise, and persecution for any other reason as an injustice. At least then we could be alive to the consequences of our action. We could be fired up, on fire for justice knowing that the price is worth it.
“Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.
-Hey, we would say, at least we'd know who our friends are. The Spirit would be there as our Advocate, and for what better reason than the love of friend, the love of Jesus, the love of God, ought we be reviled and persecuted? And how wonderful to find the one on whose account we are reviled?
But unless we are a Pentecostal people, a Holy Ghost Church, all this stuff is just too far beyond us. It is wishful thinking, it is crazy, and it is foolish.
It is…. (and here is the terrible sin for Episcopalians and Anglicans) ...excessive.
The lessons for this day are full of excess, at least at first:
Acts records violent winds, tongues of fire, noise.
The Psalm rejoices in “That Leviathan, which you have made for the sport of it,” a great sea monster on the loose, and no one minds!
Then we get the whole creation groaning, a cry for the promised new life in God's new creation.
But then we close the readings differently, with a Gospel reading that is the Holy Spirit at its quiet presence: Jesus speaks quietly with his followers about the Holy Spirit, the Advocate. No noise now, only comfort. Be at peace.
The alternate Gospel for Pentecost also is one of quiet: the doors are closed, Jesus enters, calm, “Peace,” he says, and “Receive the Holy Spirit”
The excess of noise and beasts and creation groaning is all replaced by a still calm voice: Peace…
The excess of the Pentecostal spirit often leaves us suspect. It frightens us in the church to know that the spirit might get out of hand – the wind and fire could blow and burn the house down, the leviathan could end up being the devil banging around like a large sea snake, the multitude of tongues could turn out to be babble, not praise, the groaning could for a terrible birth. So we play down the Pentecostal fire. So we back away.
But when we do we also back away from the still calm voice of the Spirit.
In a quiet room Jesus says: Peace.
He says: God go with you.
He says: Be full of the Holy Spirit.
He says: Let the captives go:
If they walk free, they are free,
If you can’t let them free,
You are stuck with them.
There is the excess, even in this quiet room:
The excess of the Spirit is like that: It frees everyone, except the one who misses life in captivity.
Too often the church has become like a prison with its wardens and guards: we close people in as captives with all sorts of rules, regulations, beliefs, right expectations, and so on.
When we open the prison door and let the captives out we know there is bound to be trouble…but such trouble as we might have wished for all our lives – the trouble that comes with God’s Spirit dwelling in us.
There is a lot of fear in Anglican circles these days, the fear that we have lost our grounding. But, if we believe in the Pentecostal fire, the possibility that God can overwhelm us with presence of God’s spirit, then we have every business being open to that Spirit.
Most of us are proper Episcopalian sorts and Lord knows (as indeed he does) that we will mostly open out in seemly and rather proper sorts of ways…but perhaps we too can peek under the tent and into the Pentecostal meeting and test the waters of life that come with the Spirit flowering in us in new and wonderful ways.
Otherwise, why this celebration? Pentecost is a kind of madness unless we believe that the same Holy Spirit that gives us freedom from captivity also guides us to live as God's people. The Church got its start in such madness.
Remember the noise, and the wind, and the fire. But also remember the quiet close:
Peace,
God go with you,
be filled with the Holy Spirit.
Free the captives.
Can I hear an AMEN?
Sermon, Pentecost, 2009
If we Episcopalians had any courage at all, we would call ourselves Pentecostal…
Of course we are already: We call down the Holy Spirit on the bread and wine, we use oil for healing and ask the Spirit of God to give strength, we give double billing to the Holy Spirit in Baptism, complete with anointing and the invocation of the Holy Spirit, but still we don’t usually call our selves Pentecostal. If we had courage we’d say, “We are a Pentecostal Church!” The air would be electric with the possibilities.
If we are a Spirit Filled church, as well as a church that takes Scripture seriously (rather than literally or metaphorically), and take to being a community of about justice rather of conformity, all sorts of things are possible. Our young people could have visions, our old people dream dreams. We could old and young be filled with imagination, and leave the middle years to such trivia as getting along, getting ahead, making it, and so forth.
Why, we could be really imaginative – imagining what a loving and just community could look like – we’d talk about our visions and dreams as if they had present power.
We’d have “Holy Ghost” power. And having imagined it, we could do it. Why, we might even enjoy it!
We could say the beatitudes and live them out. Instead of merely mouthing them we could live them. You know the beatitudes:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
– and imagine - we could know with them that it was inevitable that God’s justice will win out. With Bishop Tutu we could proclaim that we have already won, we are only making the present conform to the reality of the future. We could take to the streets and dance….
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
- We could weep and stomp about and wail and get through it and find comfort in one another and in God.
“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
– We could kick back and have a little inheritance party… "Look," we would say, "see the view from OUR front yard… great sunset don’t you think. This beach is our beach, this land is our land… God gave it to all of us, his children, all of us."
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
– We could begin to think of abundance and not scarcity of righteousness and justice. We could give everyone all the justice they could digest, after all there is always more! You want justice? We’ve got it to spare. We’ll do justice here, there, everywhere.
“Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
– We could finally talk about what’s in it for me… give mercy get mercy; give bleakness and misery, get misery and bleak. We could just love mercy so much we would keep trying to give it away, only to realize that we kept getting it back.!
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
– We could learn to do one thing at a time (for as Kierkegaard said, purity of heart is to will one thing) and do it well:
when we dance we will dance,
when we weep we will weep,
when we praise God that is what we will be - Praise.
When we love we will be Love.
When we sleep, it will be as if we died.
When we rise up it will always be that great getting up morning.
Resurrection will happen, just like that!
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
-We could envision skipping through the garden as peace children, slipping the snake a soothing pet on the head, and wander off with Adam and Eve, and maybe the Fall could happen some other time. Wouldn't that be fine?
“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
-And the best for last, we could realize that persecution for justice as no surprise, and persecution for any other reason as an injustice. At least then we could be alive to the consequences of our action. We could be fired up, on fire for justice knowing that the price is worth it.
“Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.
-Hey, we would say, at least we'd know who our friends are. The Spirit would be there as our Advocate, and for what better reason than the love of friend, the love of Jesus, the love of God, ought we be reviled and persecuted? And how wonderful to find the one on whose account we are reviled?
But unless we are a Pentecostal people, a Holy Ghost Church, all this stuff is just too far beyond us. It is wishful thinking, it is crazy, and it is foolish.
It is…. (and here is the terrible sin for Episcopalians and Anglicans) ...excessive.
The lessons for this day are full of excess, at least at first:
Acts records violent winds, tongues of fire, noise.
The Psalm rejoices in “That Leviathan, which you have made for the sport of it,” a great sea monster on the loose, and no one minds!
Then we get the whole creation groaning, a cry for the promised new life in God's new creation.
But then we close the readings differently, with a Gospel reading that is the Holy Spirit at its quiet presence: Jesus speaks quietly with his followers about the Holy Spirit, the Advocate. No noise now, only comfort. Be at peace.
The alternate Gospel for Pentecost also is one of quiet: the doors are closed, Jesus enters, calm, “Peace,” he says, and “Receive the Holy Spirit”
The excess of noise and beasts and creation groaning is all replaced by a still calm voice: Peace…
The excess of the Pentecostal spirit often leaves us suspect. It frightens us in the church to know that the spirit might get out of hand – the wind and fire could blow and burn the house down, the leviathan could end up being the devil banging around like a large sea snake, the multitude of tongues could turn out to be babble, not praise, the groaning could for a terrible birth. So we play down the Pentecostal fire. So we back away.
But when we do we also back away from the still calm voice of the Spirit.
In a quiet room Jesus says: Peace.
He says: God go with you.
He says: Be full of the Holy Spirit.
He says: Let the captives go:
If they walk free, they are free,
If you can’t let them free,
You are stuck with them.
There is the excess, even in this quiet room:
The excess of the Spirit is like that: It frees everyone, except the one who misses life in captivity.
Too often the church has become like a prison with its wardens and guards: we close people in as captives with all sorts of rules, regulations, beliefs, right expectations, and so on.
When we open the prison door and let the captives out we know there is bound to be trouble…but such trouble as we might have wished for all our lives – the trouble that comes with God’s Spirit dwelling in us.
There is a lot of fear in Anglican circles these days, the fear that we have lost our grounding. But, if we believe in the Pentecostal fire, the possibility that God can overwhelm us with presence of God’s spirit, then we have every business being open to that Spirit.
Most of us are proper Episcopalian sorts and Lord knows (as indeed he does) that we will mostly open out in seemly and rather proper sorts of ways…but perhaps we too can peek under the tent and into the Pentecostal meeting and test the waters of life that come with the Spirit flowering in us in new and wonderful ways.
Otherwise, why this celebration? Pentecost is a kind of madness unless we believe that the same Holy Spirit that gives us freedom from captivity also guides us to live as God's people. The Church got its start in such madness.
Remember the noise, and the wind, and the fire. But also remember the quiet close:
Peace,
God go with you,
be filled with the Holy Spirit.
Free the captives.
Can I hear an AMEN?
Who we are and Whose we are.
On Friday I posted a statement on the House of Bishops / House of Deputies list. While I read the posting there regularly I don't often contribute, but a rather wide ranging harangue was going on about matters arising from referencing and then publishing of emails and a paper "in progress." It seemed to me that what ever the merits of this or that position, the conversation was taking a turn for the worse. Remembering that in few weeks the people on that list, and perhaps many of the people reading Preludium, are going to General Convention, I wrote the following:
Friends:
I am reluctant to say anything much at this point and have no intention of addressing the specifics of the exchanges on the HoB/D list these past few days regarding emails, conduct and cyber fingers. I have read all of the exchanges, of course, but have mostly tried to focus these past two days on work on a sermon for Pentecost, one that might help draw people toward "God's deeds of power," and might address matters of forgiveness and retention. It has been hard to read the list exchanges, see my own falling short of the call to find full pentecostal fire and keep free from death's dark power that works against the Spirit. They have been a considerable distraction to the sermon! But maybe they aren't distractions, but reminders.
Mostly I am reminded that we who write on this list will become a community of believers in close proximity in just a few weeks. We will go to General Convention together. I am looking forward to this time.
We are an Episcopal Church and we put some of our community at a focal point of the working of the Holy Spirit and at the same time the powers of death. We call them bishops. We give them honor because we, God willing, have put them positions that are filled with trouble. Our respect for the office of bishop and of the persons who occupy that office must be evident and part of our common life. Some bishops may find me, or any one of us, a bother, and I, or any one of us, can find them individually or collectively unnerving, but I hope it is clear that our respect for the office and for the difficult roles we put bishops in is such that they are aware, individually and collectively of our prayers for them. I look forward to seeing and working with Bishops Howe, MacPherson and Lawrence, just as I do with Bishops Robinson, Chane and Bruno, and of course with my own bishop Wayne Wright. There will be contentions, of course. But there is at the core the belief held by Episcopalians that the office and role of Bishop is central to our common life.
At the same time a whole lot of us will be there in other orders within the church gathered as deputies, lobbyists, exhibitors, friends, general Episcopalians. In some ways not available to bishops, deputies are brought to General Convention to exercise participant oversight of the Church and its mission efforts. We gather as a community across a wide spectrum of theological opinion and our respect for the office and person of every deputy and all of the gathered faithful must also be evident and part of our common life. It will be a pleasure to see again friends from across the spectrum(s) in the Church, and it will be a source of sadness to notice those missing from the ranks.
We need also to remind ourselves that in THIS church we gather in synod as a community of Christians first and not partisans. Who knows what the Holy Spirit has in mind... violent winds (always a possibility at General Convention) or quiet greetings of Peace? Both will have their place.
I'm putting my prayers on the whole miserable lot of us, this band of sisters and brothers, etc, redeemed by the Lord Jesus in ways that we cannot even imagine. General Convention is and becomes a community of faith.
Whatever our disagreements or disagreeable actions, I am hoping and praying that I we remember who and Whose we are. I am looking forward with real joy to reconnecting with this community in a few weeks, and hope that across the various 'gaps' we can mind, and that we can close them in moments that are both pentecostal and peaceful.
As a good friend says, "that's my story and I'm sticking to it."
I received four responses, all positive, all off the list. I was grateful for the responses and for the friends that sent them. The on-list response was that the conversation moved in a different direction, but the comment itself was not mentioned at all. So I suppose the note served some end related to peaceful exchange.
In an entirely different mode of "minding the gap" Baby Blue posted a note on her weekend retreat experience with the Daughters of the King in Virginia. Read it HERE.
She writes, "One of the major themes of this weekend was "Standing in the Gap," a call to the Daughters of the King - Anglican and Episcopalian - to stand in the gap in what was called our "spiritual" Gettysburgs, conflicts so fierce they seem insurmountable, but that Christ calls us to stand in the gap in the power of the cross. The Daughters were commissioned this weekend to do just that."
The title of her post presents some of the awkwardness of these times: "Province Three of the Daughters of the King hold annual retreat: Episcopalian and Anglican women join together for extraordinary weekend." It is perhaps more accurate to say "Anglican women join together..." The distinction between being Episcopalian and being Anglican is not what the "gap" is about, at least from my perspective. The women who came together came from different churches. The Daughters of the King states, "Today our membership includes women in the Anglican, Episcopal, Lutheran (ELCA) and Roman Catholic churches." Again, the distinction between Anglican and Episcopal is unhelpful, since it implies that being Episcopalian is not being Anglican.
Be that as it may, the gathering of women with the Cross of Christ central, and not all the madness of our disagreements, is a spiritually significant event. They will try to bridge the gap, but they must mind it as well, for it is real.
It appears that members of various churches working in the jurisdiction of the Episcopal Church and claiming to be the voice of North American Anglicanism will be at General Convention. In particular the American Anglican Council will be there. They will be established in the exhibit area where sellers of Amish Fudge, icon painters from the East, amazing amounts of cloth both secular and ecclesiastical, and various organizations will be found. A number of these organizations will be touting distinctly minority interests. But very few will be there maintaining that they are the true voice of Anglicanism and that the Episcopal Church has lost its way and is not that church.
Friends:
I am reluctant to say anything much at this point and have no intention of addressing the specifics of the exchanges on the HoB/D list these past few days regarding emails, conduct and cyber fingers. I have read all of the exchanges, of course, but have mostly tried to focus these past two days on work on a sermon for Pentecost, one that might help draw people toward "God's deeds of power," and might address matters of forgiveness and retention. It has been hard to read the list exchanges, see my own falling short of the call to find full pentecostal fire and keep free from death's dark power that works against the Spirit. They have been a considerable distraction to the sermon! But maybe they aren't distractions, but reminders.
Mostly I am reminded that we who write on this list will become a community of believers in close proximity in just a few weeks. We will go to General Convention together. I am looking forward to this time.
We are an Episcopal Church and we put some of our community at a focal point of the working of the Holy Spirit and at the same time the powers of death. We call them bishops. We give them honor because we, God willing, have put them positions that are filled with trouble. Our respect for the office of bishop and of the persons who occupy that office must be evident and part of our common life. Some bishops may find me, or any one of us, a bother, and I, or any one of us, can find them individually or collectively unnerving, but I hope it is clear that our respect for the office and for the difficult roles we put bishops in is such that they are aware, individually and collectively of our prayers for them. I look forward to seeing and working with Bishops Howe, MacPherson and Lawrence, just as I do with Bishops Robinson, Chane and Bruno, and of course with my own bishop Wayne Wright. There will be contentions, of course. But there is at the core the belief held by Episcopalians that the office and role of Bishop is central to our common life.
At the same time a whole lot of us will be there in other orders within the church gathered as deputies, lobbyists, exhibitors, friends, general Episcopalians. In some ways not available to bishops, deputies are brought to General Convention to exercise participant oversight of the Church and its mission efforts. We gather as a community across a wide spectrum of theological opinion and our respect for the office and person of every deputy and all of the gathered faithful must also be evident and part of our common life. It will be a pleasure to see again friends from across the spectrum(s) in the Church, and it will be a source of sadness to notice those missing from the ranks.
We need also to remind ourselves that in THIS church we gather in synod as a community of Christians first and not partisans. Who knows what the Holy Spirit has in mind... violent winds (always a possibility at General Convention) or quiet greetings of Peace? Both will have their place.
I'm putting my prayers on the whole miserable lot of us, this band of sisters and brothers, etc, redeemed by the Lord Jesus in ways that we cannot even imagine. General Convention is and becomes a community of faith.
Whatever our disagreements or disagreeable actions, I am hoping and praying that I we remember who and Whose we are. I am looking forward with real joy to reconnecting with this community in a few weeks, and hope that across the various 'gaps' we can mind, and that we can close them in moments that are both pentecostal and peaceful.As a good friend says, "that's my story and I'm sticking to it."
I received four responses, all positive, all off the list. I was grateful for the responses and for the friends that sent them. The on-list response was that the conversation moved in a different direction, but the comment itself was not mentioned at all. So I suppose the note served some end related to peaceful exchange.
In an entirely different mode of "minding the gap" Baby Blue posted a note on her weekend retreat experience with the Daughters of the King in Virginia. Read it HERE.
She writes, "One of the major themes of this weekend was "Standing in the Gap," a call to the Daughters of the King - Anglican and Episcopalian - to stand in the gap in what was called our "spiritual" Gettysburgs, conflicts so fierce they seem insurmountable, but that Christ calls us to stand in the gap in the power of the cross. The Daughters were commissioned this weekend to do just that."
The title of her post presents some of the awkwardness of these times: "Province Three of the Daughters of the King hold annual retreat: Episcopalian and Anglican women join together for extraordinary weekend." It is perhaps more accurate to say "Anglican women join together..." The distinction between being Episcopalian and being Anglican is not what the "gap" is about, at least from my perspective. The women who came together came from different churches. The Daughters of the King states, "Today our membership includes women in the Anglican, Episcopal, Lutheran (ELCA) and Roman Catholic churches." Again, the distinction between Anglican and Episcopal is unhelpful, since it implies that being Episcopalian is not being Anglican.
Be that as it may, the gathering of women with the Cross of Christ central, and not all the madness of our disagreements, is a spiritually significant event. They will try to bridge the gap, but they must mind it as well, for it is real.
It appears that members of various churches working in the jurisdiction of the Episcopal Church and claiming to be the voice of North American Anglicanism will be at General Convention. In particular the American Anglican Council will be there. They will be established in the exhibit area where sellers of Amish Fudge, icon painters from the East, amazing amounts of cloth both secular and ecclesiastical, and various organizations will be found. A number of these organizations will be touting distinctly minority interests. But very few will be there maintaining that they are the true voice of Anglicanism and that the Episcopal Church has lost its way and is not that church.
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