The Mind of the House Revealed

The House of Bishops meets regularly between sessions of the General Convention and they can conduct some business specific to the House. Occasionally this takes the form of statements that express the "Mind of the House." This week, at Camp Allen, they have revealed the mind of the house in three quite remarkable ways.

Some time ago Bishop Paul Marshall commented that the Archbishop of Canterbury seemed unwilling to meet with the Bishops of the Episcopal Church but quite willing to meet with the small minority of bishops and others who objected to the actions taken by The Episcopal Church. He asked when the ABC was going to meet with the majority of the bishops of this Church.

So here is the "Mind of the House" on the matter:

To the Archbishop of Canterbury and the members of the Primates' Standing Committee:

We, the Bishops of The Episcopal Church, meeting in Camp Allen, Navasota, Texas, March 16-21, 2007, have considered the requests directed to us by the Primates of the Anglican Communion in the Communiqué dated February 19, 2007.

Although we are unable to accept the proposed Pastoral Scheme, we declare our passionate desire to remain in full constituent membership in both the Anglican Communion and the Episcopal Church.

We believe that there is an urgent need for us to meet face to face with the Archbishop of Canterbury and members of the Primates' Standing Committee, and we hereby request and urge that such a meeting be negotiated by the Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church and the Archbishop of Canterbury at the earliest possible opportunity.

We invite the Archbishop and members of the Primates' Standing Committee to join us at our expense for three days of prayer and conversation regarding these important matters.

Adopted March 20, 2007

The House of Bishops

The Episcopal Church

Spring Meeting 2007

Camp Allen Conference Center

Navasota, Texas

The invitation is coupled with notice that a majority of the bishops are unable to accept the proposed Pastoral Scheme. So the need to talk is now urgent. The Archbishop has been about the business of putting together a list of nominations for the slots on the proposed Pastoral Scheme. It would appear that he was acting too quickly. It's time to talk face-to-face.

The Bishops also produced a second short statement addressed to the Executive Council which advises the Executive Council not to go forward with the Pastoral Scheme. Here they said,

Mind of the House of Bishops Resolution Addressed to the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church

Resolved, the House of Bishops affirms its desire that The Episcopal Church remain a part of the councils of the Anglican Communion; and

Resolved, the meaning of the Preamble to the Constitution of The Episcopal Church is determined solely by the General Convention of The Episcopal Church; and

Resolved, the House of Bishops believes the proposed Pastoral Scheme of the Dar es Salaam Communiqué of February 19, 2007 would be injurious to The Episcopal Church and urges that the Executive Council decline to participate in it; and

Resolved, the House of Bishops pledges itself to continue to work to find ways of meeting the pastoral concerns of the Primates that are compatible with our own polity and canons.

Adopted March 20, 2007

The House of Bishops

The Episcopal Church

Spring Meeting 2007

Camp Allen Conference Center

Navasota, Texas

It is a relief to see the House affirm what a number of us have contended for a long time, namely that the Preamble to the Constitution of the Episcopal Church is not available as a proof text that we are defined by our relationship to the Anglican Communion. They say, "the meaning of the Preamble to the Constitution of The Episcopal Church is determined solely by the General Convention of the Episcopal Church." That's it. So much for the plea of the Anglican Communion Network and others to the contrary.

It is interesting that they toss the matter of the Pastoral Scheme over to Executive Council. That Scheme, as spelled out by the Primates, did not engage the Executive Council at all, except in so far as it needed to be funded. The Primates, in an amazing failure to understand the polity of this Church, simply assumed that its schemes should be addressed to the bishops of The Episcopal Church and that the scheme could simply be overlaid on the generous offer of the Presiding Bishop (current and past) to consider a Primatial Vicar. The Bishops rightly addressed Executive Council and affirmed the polity of this Church that makes decisions to engage such a scheme a matter for representatives of all orders.

The third posting from the House of Bishops is a longer epistle, a "Statement from the House of Bishops." More analysis on this later, but right off the bat it is filled with important and interesting feistiness. It would appear that a majority of the bishops have found a voice, and that voice is standing more clearly in support of a Church that is making important vocational choices. They are also clear that their intention is to continue working with and being part of the life of the Communion in whatever way is possible. The actions of some of the Primates in constantly rejecting the efforts of The Episcopal Church and the House of Bishops of this Church have finally been addressed, and the conclusion is this:

"At the meeting of our House of Bishops at Camp Allen, Texas in March, 2004 we adopted a proposal called Delegated Episcopal Pastoral Oversight as a means for meeting the pastoral needs of those within our Church who disagreed with actions of the General Convention. Our plan received a favorable response in the Windsor Report. It was not accepted by the Primates. At our meeting in March 2005, we adopted a Covenant Statement as an interim response to the Windsor Report in an attempt to assure the rest of the Communion that we were taking them seriously and, at some significant cost, refused to consecrate any additional bishops whatsoever as a way that we could be true to our own convictions without running the risk of consecrating some that would offend our brothers and sisters. Our response was not accepted by the Primates. Our General Convention in 2006 struggled mightily and at great cost to many, not the least of whom are our gay and lesbian members, to respond favorably to the requests made of us in the Windsor Report and the Primates' Dromantine Communiqué of 2005. We received a favorable response from the Joint Standing Committee of the Anglican Consultative Council and the Primates, which found that our effort had substantially met the concerns of the Windsor Report with the need to clarify our position on the blessing of same sex relationships. Still, our efforts were not accepted by the Primates in the Dar es Salaam Communiqué.

Other Anglican bishops, indeed including some Primates, have violated our provincial boundaries and caused great suffering and contributed immeasurably to our difficulties in solving our problems and in attempting to communicate for ourselves with our Anglican brothers and sisters. We have been repeatedly assured that boundary violations are inappropriate under the most ancient authorities and should cease. The Lambeth Conferences of 1988 and 1998 did so. The Windsor Report did so. The Dromantine Communiqué did so. None of these assurances has been heeded. The Dar es Salaam Communiqué affirms the principle that boundary violations are impermissible, but then sets conditions for ending those violations, conditions that are simply impossible for us to meet without calling a special meeting of our General Convention.

It is incumbent upon us as disciples to do our best to follow Jesus in the increasing experience of the leading of the Holy Spirit. We fully understand that others in the Communion believe the same, but we do not believe that Jesus leads us to break our relationships. We proclaim the Gospel of what God has done and is doing in Christ, of the dignity of every human being, and of justice, compassion, and peace. We proclaim the Gospel that in Christ there is no Jew or Greek, no male or female, no slave or free. We proclaim the Gospel that in Christ all God's children, including women, are full and equal participants in the life of Christ's Church. We proclaim the Gospel that in Christ all God's children, including gay and lesbian persons, are full and equal participants in the life of Christ's Church. We proclaim the Gospel that stands against any violence, including violence done to women and children as well as those who are persecuted because of their differences, often in the name of God. The Dar es Salaam Communiqué is distressingly silent on this subject. And, contrary to the way the Anglican Communion Network and the American Anglican Council have represented us, we proclaim a Gospel that welcomes diversity of thought and encourages free and open theological debate as a way of seeking God's truth. If that means that others reject us and communion with us, as some have already done, we must with great regret and sorrow accept their decision."

The whole of this statement is a powerful voice at a time when powerful voice is needed. Read it all HERE.

I look forward to the report as to the breath of support for these three messages. I understand that several of the Anglican Communion Network bishops have been absent for the whole of the Meeting and others, specifically the Moderator, have pledged only to be present to make their reports. So I suspect that the core six or seven diocesians of the Network group were absent from the discussion and votes on these documents.

The Mind of the House may be clearer these days, for one reason or another. The Mind of the House is certainly clearer than the Mind of the Primates.

I hope the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Primates Steering Committee will meet with our House of Bishops as soon as possible.

Dan Martins on 4IU, Covenant, and such.

Dan Martins, over at his blog CARIOCACONFESSIONS, not surprisingly has a good short analysis of the Covenant Proposal and why he likes it. Dan is a solid clear thinker and when he says "what we have to consider now is a relational covenant--a set of ground rules for how the autonomous provinces are accountable to one another interdependently. In our present condition, this is something we need very badly," we need to listen.

This set of ground rules seems relational, but it is relations as determined by "the instruments of unity", which he calls the 4IU. What that gives us, friends, is not a relational covenant, but a power determined covenant. Lost in all this is the power of the voices of the widow and her mite, the poor or oppressed, the unloved and the wounded, the left out and the outcasts. This is relational between the haves only.

What do the "powers" in this relational covenant have? They have the assurance from the rest of us that they are called to high office. We say they are called by God to their offices, and so they are. But that does not give them God given rights to determine how we relate. It gives them opportunity to provide more or less convincing reasons for relating this way or that.

I am thinking, for example, about the various rules that govern the reception of communion, both in our own churches, among our churches and ecumenically. All the decisions from on high may seem to determine the relational covenants on which reception of communion is based, but on the ground most of us who are starved for God's Word (which is every bit as much in the reception of Communion as in the reception of Scripture) will go where we need to and find comfort there.

I respect Dan for his read on the matter. I am more sure than ever that the notion of a covenant without a discussion of power is a mistake.

Well, there it is: Dates announced

At least six weeks after various reporters, including the Living Church, opined that the Primates Meeting was beginning on February 12 and at other times on February 15 we have an official statement regarding the dates of the meeting. Part of the question had to do with when the meeting with guests of the Archbishop – now including Bishops Duncan, MacPherson and Epting – was taking place in the context of the wider meeting. It was puzzling to some of us that the Anglican Communion office had not posted the dates.

Well, now we know. The Anglican Communion website published a short statement today. Here is what it said:

Anglican Communion Leaders to meet in Tanzania

The Primates of the world-wide Anglican Communion will gather for their regularly scheduled meeting 14-19 February, 2007, Jangwani Beach, near Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. Other Inter Anglican Meetings will be held around those dates at the same venue.

There are 38 Primates (Senior bishops, Presiding Bishops, Moderators) of the Anglican Communion. The Primates come together from the geographic Provinces around the globe. The Archbishop of Canterbury chairs the meetings with the Revd Canon Kenneth Kearon, Secretary General of the Anglican Communion (AC), serving as secretary.

As "primus inter pares" - first among equals, the Archbishop of Canterbury gathers his fellow primates together for Bible study, worship and conversation on the current state of affairs and mission in the global church. Archbishop Rowan Williams has stated that he is looking to the Primates for guidance on matters relating to the Lambeth Conference 2008 as well as looking at the Episcopal Church's response to the Windsor Report, in light of a special report to be discussed from a sub-committee of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) and Primates Standing Committee. There will also be reports on the Panel of Reference and The Listening Process work. Also on the agenda is the welcoming of Mrs Hellen Wasanga of Uganda as the new Anglican Observer at the United Nations in New York. She will be installed at services in New York at Trinity Church, Wall Street and in Zanzibar Cathedral.

New primates will be welcomed from including Ireland, USA, Scotland, Brazil, Australia, Korea, Japan, Indian Ocean, Aotearoa, New Zealand, Southeast Asia and Burundi. This is the first time an Archbishop of York will officially attend a Primates Meeting. Canon Kearon said, "It is the hope that the presence of Dr Sentamu will allow more discussion of church life in Britain, as the Archbishop of Canterbury's focus is heavily global during these gatherings."

On the Sunday of the meeting the Primates will travel by boat to Zanzibar for a Solemn Eucharist in the Anglican Cathedral, where the altar is built over an old slave trading post, as the people of Zanzibar commemorate the 100th anniversary of the last slave sold in Zanzibar and the 200th anniversary of the end of slavery in the British empire.

The Primates Meetings have always been private. Press and media briefings will be offered as appropriate and if needed. There will be a final press briefing if a communiqué is issued. Anglican Communion News Service (ACNS) will be updated on www.anglicancommunion.org with photos on a daily basis.

You can subscribe to the ACNS List here: http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/acnslist.html

We do ask press and media to register with us to make certain they receive all news and information items coming from the Tanzania meeting. There is no press facility on site but local hotels, we understand, have internet and wireless access.

A formal public photo call will follow the Eucharist on Sunday in Zanzibar.

Interestingly there is no mention of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Wednesday guests from the west. The only person picked out for special mention is Mrs Hellen Wasanga who will be installed as the new Anglican Observer to the U.N. If the meeting begins on February 14, then the three guests are early on the agenda.

There is, of course, no mention of the pre meeting strategy session of bishops and others in Kenya, reported by the Living Church.

Of particular interest is this comment: (The Primates will be) “looking at the Episcopal Church's response to the Windsor Report, in light of a special report to be discussed from a sub-committee of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) and Primates Standing Committee.” One presumes this is the same committee that was chosen by the Archbishop earlier. They were chosen from among the ACC and Primates, but as far as I know they were appointed by the ABC alone. For a long time the names of those persons were not mentioned and now they are referenced as a “sub-committee.” Well, administration is a strange business.

Also interesting is the note, “As "primus inter pares" - first among equals, the Archbishop of Canterbury gathers his fellow primates together for Bible study, worship and conversation on the current state of affairs and mission in the global church.” This is a clear assertion of the fact that the Primates Meeting is by his invitation and exists for worship and conversation. While I do not particularly like the “primus inter pares” language, that being a little Orwellian, I do appreciate the niceties of this announcement which makes it clear that the ABC is in charge, he is the host, and it is (one hopes) his agenda.

Is the Covenant Idea an outward and visible sign of anxiety?

The past week has seen several movements on the Anglican Covenant front:

The Covenant Design Group, with Archbishop Gomez in the chair, has met and word has it that their “report to the February meeting of the Communion's Primates will include a draft covenant.”

This is a surprising speed-up. The Windsor Report made the fatal error of such a speed-up by including an example of a draft of a covenant as an appendix to its report, which example was taken for a while as the actual core of a real covenant mandated by the Lambeth Commission. It went down in flames so quickly that it was possible at General Convention to support conversations about the development of a covenant and at the same time say, “but not this one.”

For there to be a draft covenant brought forward on the basis of one meeting seems precipitous. We might suppose that papers were sent around and maybe even vetted to a wider group of correspondents. But why the rush?

The answer, I believe, lies in the growing anxiety concerning the meeting in Tanzania. Matters of considerable consequence are on the table at the Primates Meeting, mostly having to do with the control of that meeting by the Chair, the Archbishop of Canterbury.

He must convince the group that he has careful listened to those who claim injury in the United States and Canada without giving them greater due than warranted. He must keep the meeting itself open to all the Primates in the Anglican Communion as defined by the two primary ‘licensing’ communities – the Lambeth Conference and the Anglican Consultative Council and closed to all others. And to show that he does indeed support a coherent basis for union, one based in common values, he must support conversations towards a document outlining commitments and expectations of member churches in the Anglican Communion regarding faith and good order. The draft of a covenant will assure the Primates that claims, license and inclusion are all being taken care of within the general ‘focus of unity’ provided by his office.

If he fails, the Primates Meeting may effectively become the “focus of unity” in his stead, and will take up matters, including membership on the spot.

I believe a draft covenant is being presented to the Primates in February because of a Lambeth anxiety to maintain control of the process. Otherwise the Covenant Design Group might have been advised to go more slowly, giving a report alone. Presenting a draft covenant at this stage is a strategic matter, a strategy that has grown from an anxiety.

So perhaps the place we need to begin is by saying, “be not anxious.”

The two Episcopal Church members of the Design Group, The Rev Drs. Katherine Grieb and Ephriam Radner, spoke to the matter of anxiety. The Episcopal News Service carried a story on their work which included this:

"The covenant process is moving at a great speed," Grieb said. "It's a good time for all of us to become clear about what the covenant is."

“Of the report, Radner, who is a "collegial theologian" of an organization called the Anglican Communion Institute, said: "I think it will surprise people positively for the balance, for effectiveness of discussions and what we were able to produce. It's going to respond to a wide variety of concerns that have been expressed."

“Radner said the group's discussions during its mid-January meeting in Nassau, Bahamas, and its resulting report took into account the anxieties some people have about a covenant and what this particular design group might produce. He included in those anxieties concerns that a covenant might create a curial system such as that which assists in governing the Roman Catholic Church, possible attempts to "railroad" one point of view through the process, and a covenant "being set up on the basis of trying exclude people from the start."

The ENS interview with Grieb and Radner is very useful as a non-anxious statement and should be read in its entirety. You can read it HERE.

I was particularly struck by some remarks by Dr. Grieb near the end of the ENS article:

“For Grieb the issue comes down, in part, to recognizing that there are two traditional approaches to biblical interpretation that are continually in "tension and conversation."

“One tradition she described as that "understands faithfulness to the text as being a non-complicated reproduction of what was said in the past without embroidery, without modification, taking those great, ancient -- some might even say eternal truths -- and applying them in out life today, no matter how difficult that is. It intends to preserve ‘the faith once delivered to the saints.'"

“The other tradition "understands the Bible in closer continuity with Judaism that sees the Torah as a living, breathing word, like a tree that has new leaves."

"The Bible itself has participated in the dynamic process of re-hearing the Word of God in each generation," Grieb said. "This view sees the biblical text itself as a growing thing -- a growing text. It assumes that God actually plants new insights in the text, new questions in our hearts, new interactions between reader and text."

“The on-going conversation about an Anglican covenant, Grieb said, recognizes that these two traditions live side-by-side in our congregations.

"What we need right now are for biblical interpreters and theologians and all the people living in our churches hearing the Word every Sunday, living it out in their lives all the days of the week, to reflect on these traditions of biblical interpretation," she said. "As we reflect also on our present context, we can recommit ourselves to welcome those who share another understanding of Scripture and therefore another interpretation of doctrine or ethics than we do."

"It is the time for the Anglican Communion at every level to renew its commitment to conversation about the Anglican Communion and about the history of biblical interpretation in Anglicanism," she said. "We're up to that; we can do this."

I might as well get my opinion out right from the start about one particular matter of biblical interpretation: it has to do with the biblical mandate for unity. I believe our Lord’s prayer that we be one has nothing (or almost nothing) to do with the matter of the continued viability of the Anglican Communion or with an Anglican Covenant.

The unity we seek when we try to live into Jesus’ prayer that we be one is not a prayer for covenanting together to some end, but rather a prayer that we wake up to the new reality of life in Christ and become the outward and visible sign of the inward and spiritual grace that constitutes the relation between Jesus and God the Father. Our Lord’s prayer for unity is about a sacramental not a covenantal relationship.

Covenants are drawn to support a bonding that erases or blurs the previously assumed separate realities of the individuals or elements involved. Such a bonding is often referred to as a unity, but it is not. At its extreme such bonding is the replacement of many by one, but mostly the bonding is the holding together of the many in a union that contains tensions.

The constant tension between the many and the one is exemplified in the paradox that unity requires what it is not, namely diversity. Persons or institutions that are the same have no need for unity, only persons or institutions that are different. There will be struggle then at every turn, the yin and yang of the many and the one. We all know this from the partnerships we form in life.

Even the most powerful of covenants still requires the separate, prior, and autonomous realities of the persons or organizations involved. Otherwise what we have is not a covenant but a transmogrification – the results of a kind of alchemy.

Covenants, then, entered into by individuals or organizations are powerful bonding agents but they are not magic. They may involve sacramental actions, but they are not sacraments in and of themselves. Their holiness is derivative in a reflective way: they reflectively signify to one extent or another, a bond that is intrinsic - for example, the bond between the Risen Christ and the Church as the Body of Christ. This bond is sacramental as such – the Church is the outward sign of the Risen Christ, a reality which is an ‘inward and spiritual’ reality. The derivative, reflective, covenant is not a sacrament in that sense. It is action reflective of a sacrament.

So it is important for us to remember that the attempt to cobble together a covenant among Anglican churches has very little to do with the unity that Our Lord prays for and everything to do with our desire to form unions of churches that reflect that union. To that end we try to form covenants that are binding, but we ought not confuse that reflection for the reality.

It is perfectly reasonable to ask whether or not such binding is good or bad, liberating or enslaving. And it is important to remember that entering or not entering such a covenant is not to be imagined as fulfilling or not fulfilling the prayer of unity.

The matter of a covenant will not be concluded at this Primates Meeting, but its future direction might well be: (From the ENS Article)

"For some in our group, the voice that matters is the voice of the Primates," Grieb said. "The Anglican Communion, as important as the Primates are, is much bigger than the Primates. We need to hear the voices of women, of laity and of clergy. They are the Anglican Communion on the ground."

Radner said "everything depends on [the primates' response]."

If anxiety rules, and if some Primates can force that anxiety on the meeting, the draft covenant will be pushed forward quickly. Dr Grieb’s caution needs to be heard. Dr. Radner may be right, that everything depends on the Primate’s response, but if so anxiety has won the day.

Fr. Jake has some important comments on his blog related to all this.

Mutual Responsibility and Interdependence Incarnate

The Rt. Rev. Mdimi Mhogolo, Bishop of Central Tanganyika, has written a most remarkable letter, first posted by Ann Fontaine and then picked up and published in its entirety by Jonathan, the Mad Priest.

It is worth a complete read.

The ideal of Mutual Responsibility and Interdependence in the Body of Christ, an idea that came out of the 1963 Anglican Congress (hopefully not the last such Congress), has increasingly been upstaged by more strident voices wanting something more organizationally solid to work with, like, say, a covenant. But the major problem about MRI is not that it wasn’t a good idea, but that it was never really tried. As part of a report from the Standing Commission on World Mission I wrote an essay, “MUTUAL RESPONSIBILITY AND INTERDEPENDENCE IN CHRIST (MRI): A VISION MISLAID?” You can read it HERE: (pgs 8-10)

Now in Bishop Mhogolo’s letter I am pleased to note that the vision has not been mislaid at all, but is in fact alive and well.

Here are a few snippets from his letter:

He begins by affirming the self knowledge as a community that has come from the experience of the faith in spite of colonialism, paternalism and slavery.

“We are a Church with all the rights, privileges and grace we have in Jesus Christ. We are an African Church that has come from Western Christian exploitation through slavery, colonialism and paternalism. We know how the Bible has been used in the past to terrorize our people, our cultures and the values we hold dear; questioning the dignity of our being and our faith in God, as though we were made a little less than in the image and likeness of God. We still know how the Bible is used selectively to affirm people's intrinsic understanding on the place of women in the society, the Church and Christian families; and Women's ministries and ordination, in the Church.

We value our freedom in Jesus Christ and protect it with all the power of the Holy Spirit. We will not relapse into being held captive again by anybody, even by a brother or sister in Christ. We are responsible and accountable to God in Jesus Christ as much as any other diocese or individual.”

Interdependence then grows from this autonomy of historical experience and witness in place.

“It is in this confidence that we also express our interdependence with others as equals. In our interdependence, we can share our lives with others, learn from others, and share our people skills, knowledge and resources with them. We are very open to working and living together as brothers and sisters of the Faith, and with those of other faiths.

Respect, love, freedom and dignity for all are values we hold dear in our interdependence and partnership. As much as we do not choose friends for our partners, we too hold dearly our freedom to choose our friends. We too don't choose our friends lightly. We do not work with racist Christians, be they Southerners or Northerners, Easterners or Westerners; whether they are Bible believing or Liberals, Evangelicals or Charismatics, Orthodox or Conservatives, Black or White, Yellow or Purple. We will not work with anyone who questions our dignity, our intelligence, our spirituality and the integrity of our faith in, and the freedom we have in, Jesus Christ.

Mutuality works together with interdependence as a safeguard of the autonomy that each church has, while nurturing the wholeness of the body:

“We also do not work with those who put strings to their skills, money or knowledge, those who tell us to sing their songs instead of singing ours; those who give help and demand our support and those who wish to propagate their agendas instead of standing for ours. Insisting that we behave this way is another form of slavery and Christian colonialism.

It is only in our mutual respect and love that we come together and work together for the benefit of the society we serve under the overarching mission of God.”

He then lays out the possibilities for mission that is mutual and interdependent, while respecting the experience of the community in place, and from that concludes that it would be wrong to out of hand dismiss the mutual engagement in mission of others on the basis of concerns about gay and lesbian persons:

“The way we do God's mission is to strategize our mission and then look for resources for the mission. The recruitment of people, both within and outside the country becomes part of our efforts in realising God's mission.

The material funding for God's mission impacts our goal to see God's mission is well resourced. ECUSA with its relief and development agencies is only a small part of our funding and partnership organizations.

The issue of homosexuality with its various understandings is not only an ECUSA issue, but involves all of our development and mission partners. If one is realistic, the issue of homosexuality and their money affects all our partner organisations, Churches, missionary agencies, governments and secular organisations. We then ask ourselves, why should we single out ECUSA and treat it differently?

We know that a substational amount of money and funding that governments,
Churches, and missionary societies, comes from gay and lesbian people.

We live in our cultural context where gay and lesbians are regarded as criminals punishable to long term imprisonments. We also live in a country where gay and lesbians are violently persecuted, mistreated, hated and ostracised.

We as Black Africans know the hurts and permanent damage caused by our past experiences which still linger on to the present. We have gone through all that and we know how it hurts. Once we were regarded like animals to be shot at, less than humans, to be turned into slaves and without God, to be taught the Western Christian gods. We have gone through that and we don't want to go that way again.”

And then Bishop Mhogolo reaches the conclusion that genuine Mutuality and Interdependence in the Body of Christ calls us to:

“We hold the Gospel of grace and love where all people are welcomed, loved, cared for and treated with dignity. We preach a Gospel of restoration, reconciliation, love, peace, grace and healing. Many people are already feeling bad, hurt, disoriented, frustrated and bitter. We do not want to make life worse for them; instead we provide spaces for grace, love, and care to grow, and healing to take place for all.

For this reason, we will continue to welcome all our true brothers and sisters, children and adults, adolescents and mature, black and white, African American and White Americans to work and have fellowship with us; as much as we also welcome all Christians from the rest of the Christian world, both Anglicans and non-Anglicans; Christians and non-Christians.

If Episcopalians visit us, we ask them to honor and respect our Faith, our cultures, our traditions and our way of life in Jesus Christ. People or mission partners do not come to change us. They come to appreciate, share and learn of our faith, our Christian culture we have developed and our way of life as we work together for the kingdom of God on earth.

We are not a closed Church where we reject some and welcome others. We are an open Church where even our enemies can find food, love, care and shelter. We always try to become like Jesus Christ our master, to everyone who comes into our home.
The issue of homosexuality is not fundamental to the Christian faith, although many try to make it that way!! We would have become wiser if we had learned how the Roman Catholic Church, the Lutheran World Federation, the Presbyterian Church, the Reformed Churches and the Society of Friends are dealing with the issue. We are in a mess because we do not want to learn from other world Christian Communities!!! The source of our faith and mission in God is Jesus Christ. If someone has a different understanding on the essence of our faith, then we all should be alarmed. But as long as individual Episcopalians hold the one, holy, Apostolic and Catholic Faith, who am I to pass judgment now that they are not my brothers and sisters in Christ?”

Bishop Mhogolo is living the vision of Mutuality and Interdependence in the Body of Christ in a way that I had thought was not possible. He restores my faith in the possibility of a Communion based on something deeper than a covenant of straw.

The Time is Near

And he said to me, “Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is near. Let the evil-doer still do evil, and the filthy still be filthy, and the righteous still do right, and the holy still be holy.” Revelation 22:10-11

John had a sense that it would all play out, and indeed it will.

That is the sense I have of the past few days. The bits and pieces of the puzzle concerning the struggles in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion are beginning to fall into place. I begin to have a sense that it will all become clear soon. Here are a few pieces of the puzzle:

(i) The President of the House of Deputies, Bonnie Anderson, wrote a gentle but firm letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Panel of Reference to put them on the right path and to urge them to reconsider the findings on the Diocese of Fort Worth. This letter was the practical slam dunk on the broader comments of the Bishop of Bethlehem and my own article of last week. It is time for the powers that be in the Communion to remember that The Episcopal Church is ordered in a way that includes the leadership of lay and ordained persons. The vision of purple people eaters in the form of crocodiles coming ashore from overseas has been around for a long time and it is time to stop putting up with this mess.

(ii) The Bishop of Virginia, Peter Lee and the Executive Committee of the Diocese seem finally to have reached their limit. The church members who have left the Episcopal Church now are being made to realize that their vestries have abandoned the Episcopal Church and therefore they have no standing as vestries, and the churches, far from being “theirs” are still part of the missionary resources of the Diocese of Virginia and the Episcopal Church. The churches have been abandoned, says the Bishop, and the time has come to establish new leadership, gather the remaining Episcopal Church congregants and get on with the mission of the church. The Diocese wrote on the matter, he wrote on the matter, and damn near everyone else in the blogsphere wrote. The Daily Episcopalian had THIS to say about the release from the Diocese of Virginia, and this to say in praise of Peter Lee. Now there are two, a lay person and a bishop, to join the third, the Presiding Bishop and Primate, who has begun letting bishops know the limits of their office as well.

(iii) David Virtue has posted the Archbishop attendees at the American Mission in America meeting in Florida. He claims eight Anglican Primates were present, but he lists seven, and of those two are retired: Kolini of Rwanda, Yong of South East Asia (ret.), Tay of South East Asia (ret.), Diropka of the Congo, Malango of Central Africa, Nzimbi of Kenya, Mtetemela of Tanzania. So there were five. Still a respectable number. But one wonders about the numbers…

(update from first comment below: the list seems now to be Nizimbi - Kenya, Kolini - Rwanda, Mtetemela - Tanzania, Dirokpa -Congo,Yong - S.E. Asia (retired primate),Tay - S.E. Asia (retired primate), Akrofi - West Africa, Ernest - Indian Ocean, Malango - Central Africa, Ntahoturi - Burundi. That being the case there are eight active Primates in attendance.

The only comment in Virtue’s article that drew my real interest, aside from his odd way of counting, was this: “One U.S. conservative leader present at the Winter Conference suggested that conservative global South Primates believe they have been "played" on this issue and that a head of steam is building which he believes will boil over at the Dar es Salaam, Tanzanian meeting.” Again, The Primates Meeting.

(iv) Perhaps the prize for putting the skunk on the table goes to The Rev. Penelope Duckworth who wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, and said, “With the consecration of The Most Reverend Katharine Jefferts Schori, there was suddenly no man who had more authority, and so sexism was flushed from its cover. Like many schismatics, the authors (of a Jan. 10 opinion piece - the Rev. John Yates and Os Guinness) claim to represent the true church. But, in fact, they are objecting to decisions made democratically by duly elected representatives.” The men who gather in Tanzania now are meeting with a woman. They have no more authority than she does. If they don’t live with it now, they will have to one day. If the Archbishop of Canterbury can’t hold the line there he can’t hold it at all.

In 1999 I wrote an article for Louie Crew’s Anglican Pages titled, “No Jurisdiction in this realm: On the matter of intervention and autonomy in the Anglican Communion.” In it I said, “If those in our Church who cannot reconcile themselves to a polity that does or will make decisions contrary to their own best sense of God’s will, then they have every business leaving. There is an honorable history of convinced Christians doing so. But it must be clearly understood that any effort by them to wrest from this church its mission, people, name, churches, funds or agencies will be met with authoritative, clear and resounding resistance.”

Well, now in 2007, only eight years later, the “authoritative, clear and resounding resistance” is at last being heard.

At the Primates Meeting everyone will come and live out their parts. Special guests will perhaps be heard, some Primates will posture, the Committee will report to whoever is still at the table. No matter who is there the Primates will ultimately have to deal with the reality that they have no mandate except to share with one another. In this the Archbishop of Nigeria was right. He said, “We are going to Tanzania because we are Primates of the Church and we have many things to talk about and to pray about. We come together primarily for fellowship as Primates, we come together to study the word of God and to think together on various matters that concerns our provinces.” When they get finished talking and praying and being in fellowship and studying and thinking together, they will go home, home to Churches (Provinces) in the Anglican Communion where they will live the confines of their own canons and rules for decision making. There they will be heads of churches. In Tanzania they will be a fellowship.

I cannot imagine it will be a good time, this fellowship. But perhaps the book is not sealed yet.

Archbishop Gomez lets it hang out there.

The Bahama Journal, January 16^th, posted an article by Rogan M. Smith, based on an press conference by Archbishop Gomez in Nassau on Monday the 15^th. The press conference seems to have been related to the meeting of the Covenant Design Committee, meeting January 15-19, although it is never made clear in the story. No one is quoted except the Archbishop. Perhaps, this being a local story with a local star, no one else was very interesting.

It tells us very little about the Archbishop except that he is totally opposed to homosexuality. He is quoted as saying, “My position is that God, in his wisdom, determined that the human race is made up of male and female persons and that they complement each other. The teaching of the Bible is the coming together of man and woman [and that] constitutes marriage in the biblical pattern. Any other provision will be contrary to the biblical tradition."

Later his is quoted again, this time on the matter of gay marriage and or blessing, “I couldn’t accept that because it is contrary to the teaching of scripture. What is interesting is that no one disputes that in every instance in the Bible in which sexuality is mentioned, homosexual practice is always a negative. It’s never commended in the Bible and even those who are trying to change the anthropology have to admit that the text does not support it. So, they find ways of reinterpreting the text. Scholars will always find some linguistic way of getting behind the text to make it imply something else."

So as if we already didn’t know this, the Archbishop is against homosexual practice, believes it and any blessing of gay relationships contrary to the teaching of scripture and that some scholars find some “linguistic” way of subverting the plain meaning of scripture.

More interesting is this tidbit:

"This is a pivotal moment for the Anglican Communion and that’s why the Archbishop has appointed this group because we cannot continue to drift along as we have been doing, and we’ve had one crisis over homosexuality," he said.

"There is a possibility that we could be faced with another crisis shortly in the communion that will emanate from a group in Australia. There’s a group there that is talking about having lay people presiding at the Eucharist. That’s becoming an issue that’s being talked about more and more and if it does it will present the communion with a serious theological and pastoral issue. Our problem in the communion today is we have no existing mechanism for automatically dealing with these issues."

It would appear the Archbishop believes that behind the search for a covenant is the fear that the sort of independent action taken by the Episcopal Church might be taken elsewhere. Perhaps that, not the activities in the US, is the driving force in the energies on this covenant process.

But no, the independent action that most upsets the Archbishop seems to be about homosexuality. He begins this press conference by giving his take on the crisis of the moment, not the general need for a covenant. He sticks with it, only veering to one side to take a swipe at a future discontent, and ends with a poke in the eye at scholarship that he doesn’t like.

The lay presidency issue is brought in to convince the wavering that we have to have a covenant, otherwise we face more and more crises. But the covenant matter is high on the talking point list of the realignment crowd because it is the way into a proposal that there be “constitutant” members of the Communion and a second class membership for those who don’t meet the criteria.

So the talking point is, “We have to have a Covenant because ‘we have no existing mechanism for automatically dealing with these issues.’” The operant word is “automatically.” What is wanted is a means of striking down any independent actions by any Province. Had that mechanism been in place women would not be ordained period and Barbara Harris would not have been ordained bishop. Had that mechanism been in place Bishop Robinson would not have been ordained.

Of course he doesn’t mention that several Provinces have taken independent action to decide that they will open missions or take on parishes in the United States. Such actions are of course contrary to ancient pastoral and ecclesial concerns and tradition. Would such a mechanism mean Nigeria, Uganda and the Southern Cone would be issued citations? Why doesn’t he site the independent actions of these bodies in his list?

Archbishop Gomez alone seems to have been quoted in the Bahama Journal. I don’t know if anyone else was interviewed. With this as a beginning of a week of discussion I am not at all hopeful.

There has been considerable discussion of the makeup of the Group and its leadership. I have said that I believe it is a mistake for Archbishop Gomez to head this up. The Archbishop of Canterbury said he would have trouble finding anyone who wasn't one way or the other opinionated.

His interview (even if it were written poorly) gives no assurance that initial doubts were unjustified. There is no voice except his. No voice for any other position on either ordination or blessing. No voice from lay persons or priests… there are on the Committee three lay persons, two of whom are women, there are four priests including representatives of the AAC and the ABC. But no voice from them. No voice from any other bishop. His voice alone.

If he alone is left to tell us, then we get his read on the state of affairs in the communion, and his read is that we ought to be wringing our hands and filled with fears of crisis.

I am not moved.

The Questions get Sharper (revised x2)

Bishop Paul Marshall wrote a letter that first appeared on the House of Bishops/ House of Deputies list. It has since been widely posted on the internet. As far as I can find it first appeared in the blogsphere outside the list on the blog Of Course I Could Be Wrong. We can presume it refers to the upcoming meeting of the House of Bishops March 16-21. Thanks to Louie Crew, whose Anglican Communion pages continue to be a treasure of information.

The letter itself raises questions that have been raised on this and several other blogs. The primary question is whether the Archbishop of Canterbury has anything to say about his distancing of himself and his office from the Episcopal Church and its House of Bishops. That distancing certainly holds the potential that the shunning that is currently going on would lead to a meltdown in the relationship between the Church of England and The Episcopal Church.

Read the whole of his letter HERE and HERE, and HERE.

Bishop Marshall makes it clear, “… we deserve to hear from him (the Archbishop), in the room with us, an explanation of his distance and intentions. We are all busy, and we show up where we believe it is important to go. Let's hope we become important.”

Bishop Marshall also comments, “The widely-publicized Lambeth Palace photograph of Rowan, Frank, and Katharine all standing as far away from each other as the camera lens would allow has not been without its effect on many among us. A dismal icon of formal communion without a hint of affection or connection has been sent to the entire inhabited world.”

Here is that photograph. I think the Bishop is right. (revised: Several responses have made me realize that there is no little to tell us in the photography why they are standing apart. In some other photos he is standing nearer those with him, but who knows what that means. What is important perhaps is that Bishop Marshall believes the Archbishop to be cool towards the American PB and PB elect, and that is an example of the wider distance felt between the ABC and the House of Bishops.)

The issues of the Covenant Process is addressed by Bishop Marshall: “All of this said, it seems necessary to report my perception that the nadir in Rowan's overall relationship to the US, Canada and perhaps South Africa has been the appointment of a virtual lynch mob to draft the Covenant that will by all reports attempt turn a fellowship into a curial bureaucracy in which the worst elements of the great and oppressive Colonizer and of the Resentful Colonized will as meet as a scissors to the denigration of significant number of God's people who were almost equal in Christ for one brief shining moment.”

Well, it’s good to see a bishop in a lather about the Covenant Design Group. The drift of the covenant business seems indeed to be towards a “curial bureaucracy.”

The obvious question of how this all will play in the established church was asked by Nigel Taber-Hamilton of Whidbey Island, Washington, of Roger Stokes in England. He reported Roger’s reply on the House of Bishops / House of Deputies list and I have his permission to publish the exchange.

Nigel: “ Roger, Do you know if the C of E could accept an Anglican Covenant without Parliament's approval? Seems to me that such a change as radical as this would require it.”

Roger: “It depends on what form the Covenant takes when it eventually emerges from the Drafting Group. Any move on doctrine as founded in the Holy Scriptures would require Parliamentary approval, but how do you define "founded in"? Theologians are not agreed on how to apply the various passages in today's world and psycho-sexual understanding. The House of Bishops paper "Issues in Human Sexuality", which set norms and invited further discussion, did not require Parliament's nod. Signing up to a Covenant which gave another body the power to change the Church's doctrine and discipline probably would.

However it would first have to be passed by General Synod and I am not prepared to assume that it would get over that hurdle. Unless the Covenant
is fairly anodyne I would expect it to have a difficult passage in Synod. When "Issues" was last debated there we saw remarkable unity from the House of Bishops in ensuring the defeat of any amendment to the motion calling for study and debate. (This regimented opposition turned out not to have been necessary as every amendment stressing one side or the other was defeated in the other Houses as well.) I cannot see any proposal to sign up to a Confession or Covenant as some Provinces seem to want receiving any easier passage over ten years later.

That could then leave us in the interesting position of the Focus of Unity, and President of the Instruments of Communion, heading a Province that is in the "associate" group of Churches. If that happened I think we would be in a very different type of Communion from the one we had up until five years ago. Judging by his comments on homosexuality (and his reference to males may be because sexual activity between two females has never been illegal in the UK) the new Primate of Ireland will be another supporter of inclusivity when the Primates gather in Tanzania.

My assessment is that it will be difficult for the Global South group to impose their views on the Communion as a whole and it is a matter of judgment for them how hard they will push. If they push as hard as some would like then it will lead to fracture of the Communion, partly because some of their bishops have admitted they have not studied the issues so their opposition will not be accepted by those who have engaged in that study. They are, of course, free to maintain their own groups for mutual support but I do not see any move to expel TEC or the Canadians from the Communion getting through the Anglican Consultative Council, and any attempt by the Primates to force the issue would cause further resentment and opposition there.

In my view a wiser course by the Global South Provinces would be not to push so hard but to say that certain individuals, or those belonging to certain groups, may not minister in their Provinces because the views they express might weaken the faith of others. By so doing they could argue they were following in the advice of St Paul about refraining from actions that would undermine the faith of others. The Primates' Meeting will be interesting and, as Archbishop Rowan has said, there will be the need for discernment and decisions. Will people like Archbishop Akinola stay at the table to share in that process or not? That is his decision. Will the Primates accept the principle of organizations like CANA? I doubt it, and certainly not unanimously. My sense is that all the rope has been played out and is about to be jerked. We will see next month and meanwhile all we can do is pray.”

“All the rope has been played out and is about to be jerked.” There it is. The Covenant Design Group is meeting this month in preparation for the meeting of the Primates in Tanzania. One wonders if they will hear what Roger Stokes has said or what Bishop Marshall has thundered.

The ingredients for the Tanzania stew are ready to be thrown together. What will it taste like? “We will see next month and meanwhile all we can do is pray.”

Enough: it is time to move on.

Several commentators have suggested that the time has come to say, “Enough!” It is a time of growing frustration by some of us with an emerging effort at governance by persons and bodies that have no mandate from any people of God to do so. The organized structures of the Anglican Communion, also known as the “focus of unity” and the “instruments of communion” have more and more acted as if they are the voices of a magisterium or a patriarchy, having powers beyond that of recommendation.

As some who read this blog understand, I am deeply committed to the bonds of affection that constitute the Anglican Communion. But in these last days I have increasingly come to believe that these bonds have almost nothing to do with the struggles both from within and from without to mandate from afar solutions to "our" problems. This is not the Anglican Communion to which I have given much of my ministry and energy. This is a perversion of fellowship into some other form of relationship. For a much better and quite readable statement on this I recommend Johnathan's essay. The Daily Episcopalian's expressions of doubt about the whole thing are also calm and reasoned comments.

With some fear and trepidation I offer the following as a statement of some of the concerns that others and I have. What value there is in this I do not know. We shall see.

This is a long piece, for which I am tempted to apologize. But instead I ask your patience. It is, after all, grist for the mill.

We will all be changed.

Mark

____________________________________________________________________________

The Vocation of the Episcopal Church.

The Episcopal Church has struggled to affirm its place in the organized structures of the Anglican Communion. The need to continue that struggle is now in question.

The continued participation of The Episcopal Church in the instrumentalities of the Anglican Communion is not essential to our continued faithfulness as a Christian body, nor is it the basis for our fellowship with other Churches in the Anglican Communion. We must not confuse the gift of fellowship for the vocation to which we are called.

The uninvited and unwelcome efforts to pressure The Episcopal Church to bend to the teachings of a supposed magisterium or the decrees of agencies of the Anglican Communion, teachings and decrees that have no authority save that which are self assigned must be countered by certain reminders of our own reliance on the essentials of Christian community, unencumbered by ecclesiastically “foreign” intervention.

Decent respect for the opinions of faithful Christians of all communities and communions requires that we should declare the reasons for our belief that The Episcopal Church is and always has been a freely gathered community of faithful Christians.

The Episcopal Church and its Call to Serve.

We as a Church have engaged the peoples of the United States and other countries in mission, and we are ordered as a Church as a missionary society. In these efforts God has challenged us at every turn to a vocation of pilgrimage, seeking always a better place, both here and in Promise. That vocation has involved at least the following:

• The Episcopal Church asserts in its preface to its first Book of Common Prayer (1789) that “..when in the course of Divine Providence, these American States became independent with respect to civil government, their ecclesiastical independence was necessarily included…” and later “this Church is far from intending to depart from the Church of England in any essential point of doctrine, discipline, or worship; for further than local circumstances require.” (pgs 10-11, Episcopal Church BCP) This Church has therefore held in tension two remarkable, but sometimes differing gifts: the gift of ecclesiastical independence and the gift of a Godly inheritance in the ministry and witness of the Church of England.

• From the outset this Church, the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, understood that we were ecclesiastically independent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal of the Church and State of England. In the United States there would be no Archbishops, no established Church. We would have no King or Governor to whom any attribution of divine right or power would be made. We would find ourselves numbered among the “different religious denominations of Christians in these States,” “left at full and equal liberty to model and organize their respective Churches, and forms of worship, and discipline, in such manner as they might judge most convenient for their future prosperity; consistently with the constitution and laws of their country.” (BCP, pg. 10)

• We determined to be an Episcopal church, but not a monarchical or patriarchal church. Our bishops would be elected from among the clergy by lay and clerical members of a diocesan convention, would serve the pastoral and missionary needs of the respective dioceses, and would be paid from the offerings of the several congregations of their dioceses or from the missionary funds of the whole Church.

• It was determined by the laws of the land that there would be no established religion, and The Episcopal Church came to understand its vocation to be a church for the whole nation. At every point in its missionary and ecclesial formation the Episcopal Church has sought, and often struggled internally, to open its heart and mind to greater inclusion of the peoples within its jurisdictions. That struggle is a mark of a church set upon the course of becoming a church for the whole people.

• We have determined to be one with the Church of England in all “essential point(s) of doctrine, discipline, or worship,” departing not “further than local circumstances require.” Local circumstances required that we not engage the society as the established church and we are thankful for that. Nor did we feel that Archbishops, loyalty oaths to the head of state or the head of church, or discipline determined by ecclesiastical decree, were of the essence of the faith. We therefore felt it appropriate to order our common life as a free and independent body of Christians, related on the basis of essential doctrine, discipline and worship, to the Church of England. We are not now, and never have been, related to the Church of England in ways that would infer that the Church of England’s Primate, the Archbishop of Canterbury, is in any way Archbishop, Metropolitan or Patriarch for this Church.

• From our beginnings we also acknowledged our profound indebtedness to the Episcopal Church of Scotland who set apart our first bishop and gave us new ways of expressing the essentials of our faith in worship. We were, from the outset, aware of belonging to a wider Episcopal fellowship than that of the Church of England alone.

• We have participated in this wider fellowship in many ways, but primarily in the gatherings of bishops from Churches related to the Church of England that began meeting in a decennial conference called “The Lambeth Conference,” the first in 1867, and in cooperative missionary efforts in the world. At every turn we have informed and have been informed by the ministry of the peoples of our several churches.

• Our House of Bishops has enumerated in the Chicago – Lambeth Quadrilateral the basis on which union with other Christian bodies might be achieved. The introduction to that document, in its Episcopal Church version, (BCP, p. 876) assumes the Quadrilateral would require: (i) unity to be on the “deepest and truest” level, (ii) that we understand baptism as the basis of membership in the Holy Catholic Church, (iii) that we acknowledge the costly forgoing of “preferences of her own,” (iv) and that we not seek the absorption of various churches into one. This preparatory and spiritual quadrilateral introduces the now famous Quadrilateral and does so with the assumptions not of an established church, but a church in the midst of churches.

• We have been an active agent in the wider Anglican Communion efforts to do mission in settings understood increasingly as contextual in nature. We have not been by any means perfect in this, but we have increasingly honored those we have ministered to, affirming them as persons and communities that would express the Christian faith as their context and circumstances would require.

• In all this we have also been mindful of our own failings and those of our society. The Episcopal Church, to its great shame, did not take an official position on slavery in the years leading up to or during the Civil War, leaving the matter to the outcome of civil strife. As a Church we entered late into the struggle for equal rights for all citizens and in particular for women and for people of color. In the Church we began to address those changes in a significant way with the increasing inclusion of women in the governance of the Church and with the growing (but not yet perfected) effort to break down the power of racism in our lives and in our society.

• As a Church we have set ourselves on a course to grow as a community of believers no longer separated by our prejudices, origins or social status. Nothing, we have learned, can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ. At the same time we have determined to hold one another accountable in forms of church governance that increasingly attend to those who have previously been excluded.

• To this end we have subjected ourselves as a Church to the criticisms and support of people of the churches of the Anglican Communion, those of the wider Ecumenical community of which the Anglican Communion is a particular example, and of Christians everywhere. We have valued both criticism and support as part of the companionship we have with all communities of Christians.

The Challenge to our Vocation as a Church:

Yet we find now that in many respects the wider instruments of the Anglican Communion, and in particular the body of ecclesiastical personages called the Primates and Moderators, have challenged our vocation – a vocation to be a church increasingly inclusive of all the peoples of the jurisdictions and areas in which we are present, contextually responsible to the concerns as understood locally, and to the land itself, and open to God’s promise in Jesus Christ that all has been made new.

Such a charge requires that we list the efforts to impose oppressive restrictions on our life as a Christian community, impositions that minorities in our own Church in concert with members of other churches in the Anglican family have attempted to effect:

· The Episcopal Church has been subjected to the widest sort of criticism in the Windsor Report and has made great efforts to address the concerns raised. We have not been in any way encouraged by the Archbishop or the Primates; rather they have lifted the Windsor Report from its status as a critique and a set of recommendations to that of a litmus test of loyalty to an emerging power, an international church with the structures of a Patriarchy.

· The Episcopal Church has been charged in the Windsor Report with breaking the bonds of affection that holds the Anglican Communion together. This is stated as a matter of the immediate past, occasioned by the ordination of a partnered gay person as bishop. Yet those bonds were broken in many cases by others much earlier, and for our decision to ordain women, a decision taken as a matter of moral urgency in our own church.

· The Episcopal Church has been accused of having acted without prior consultation in the ordination of women, in the ordination of gay and lesbian persons, in the blessing of same sex partnerships and in the ordination of gay and lesbian persons in such committed relationships. There is considerable evidence that nothing we have done has been without open discussion both among ourselves and with Anglicans elsewhere. What has become apparent is that the accusation is that we acted without permission, and the assumption has been made that we ought to have sought such permission.

· The Episcopal Church is accused from within by a minority of its own members of having “left” or “walked away” from the Anglican Communion. Those voices have been joined by voices from other parts of the Communion. Yet we have been faithful members of this fellowship. We have participated fully in its life. We have been engaged in mission efforts throughout the world, honoring the concerns and needs of the peoples among whom we have served, and in cooperation with other mission agencies and churches. We have made our contributions to the working groups of the Communion. We have supported greater communications among the churches of the Global South. We have supported the rapid indigenization of ministries throughout the world. We have supported the central budget of the Communion. The Episcopal Church has not walked away or left the Anglican Communion. We have dared to consider the Windsor Report and the statements of the Primates as matters for our deepest consideration and as the basis for engagement, rather than as mandates requiring our acquiescence.

· The Episcopal Church has considered its presence and engagement in the life of the Anglican Communion to be an expression of its vocation in the world. But we have in these past several years been increasingly shunned –

· We have been asked to voluntarily withdraw our representatives from the Anglican Consultative Council;

· Several Provinces have declared that they are no longer in communion with this church and they have undertaken alternative or parallel church development in the jurisdiction of this Province, this without regard to the Windsor Report, several Lambeth resolutions or ancient canon.

· Our former Presiding Bishop has been shunned by other Primates, without objection from friends or host;

· Our Presiding Bishop has been told by at least one other Primate that he will not sit at table with her, and there has been no objection from friends or host;

· The Archbishop of Canterbury has consistently engaged the organized minority in the Episcopal Church in ways that encourage their refusal to comply with the decisions of this church, and has done nothing to moderate their actions;

· The Archbishop of Canterbury has appointed committees and commissions whose work is described as advisory and then applied that advice in ways that appear directive and advance interference in the life of a Church not his own;

· The Archbishop of Canterbury has convened a Panel of Reference that has interjected its opinions regarding The Episcopal Church and its intention to be fully inclusive of women. He has raised no objection to the recommendation of the Panel that The Episcopal Church be asked to assure that “theological views on the ordination or consecration of women should not be a ground on which consent might be withheld by the Province/House of Bishops.” (Panel of Reference report on Fort Worth, 17b)

· He has raised no objection to the recommendation that “the Archbishop of Canterbury continue discussions with the Diocese of Fort Worth and with the Episcopal Church with the aim of securing the place of Fort Worth in the Communion.” (17d) This in total disregard of the fact that the Diocese of Fort Worth already has a place in the Communion by way of its inclusion in The Episcopal Church.

The Episcopal Church as a Faithful Community.

We have not been wanting in attentions to those who are our critics, but we cannot continue further in acquiesce.

The Episcopal Church cannot claim to be without fault in these matters, and indeed it has stated again and again, and particularly at the 2006 General Convention, its willingness to both hear and heed the call that it be receptive of the godly advice of the wider fellowship of the Anglican Communion. It has expressed its regret for having contributed to strains in the bonds of affection that holds the Anglican Communion together as a fellowship.

But we cannot be subject to interference by others in the determination of the application of our own canons or to the disrespect to jurisdictions of this church or the officers of its administration.

We are a church that ordains women, and we have elected a woman as Presiding Bishop, Primate and Chief Pastor. While there may have been in this matter accommodation for the sensibilities of particular bishops or dioceses that accommodation is drawing to a close. Our Presiding Bishop is the Presiding Bishop for this church as a whole. Those who have problems with her gender will have to be patient (for no bishop serves forever) or leave.

We elect our bishops and their election is subject to consent by elected lay and ordained representatives of dioceses (remembering that bishops too are elected leaders). We pray that these representatives are guided by the Holy Spirit. It is not a matter for other Churches to determine if we are right or wrong in so electing. We are willing to receive recommendations regarding restrictions on the matter of consents, but we cannot have them mandated from afar.

We are in the process of working through the context in which we will affirm and bless gay and lesbian partnerships. We are not of one mind in the matter. But we are determined that God is working a purpose out in our struggles as a church to be as open to God’s blessings as God is open to blessing.

In all this we believe we are a faithful Christian community, a Church among the people we have been called to serve, and in all essentials a body of believers committed to the catholic and reformed faith we have received.

The restrictive and punitive efforts of the various “instruments,” commissions and committees of the Anglican Communion are contrary to our understanding of our vocation as a Church and may indeed make our continued engagement with Anglican Communion structures as they now stand increasingly difficult, if not impossible. The emergence of instruments for a magisterium and a patriarchy in the Anglican Communion are contrary to our understandings of our vocation and of union in its “truest and deepest” sense.

It is our intention to continue to be in communion with as many of the churches of the Anglican Communion as will have us. We will seek other companions not of this flock as well.

We will not confuse that continued fellowship with the possibility of a break in relations with one or the other of the various bodies that constitute the structures of the Anglican Communion – vis: the Primates Meeting, The Lambeth Conference, the Anglican Consultative Council, the Archbishop of Canterbury.

We believe there is no need for any of the breaks in the bonds of affection that tie us together as a fellowship. These bonds are of fellowship, not of some exercising lordship over others. We have only one Lord, Jesus Christ, all others are with us companions on the Way.

The desire by some in the Communion to be an ecclesial kingdom like other kingdoms – that is to say to become a patriarchal international church – is misplaced. We desire neither Rome nor Geneva – neither an international hierarchy nor a state / city church. There is no need for an Anglican equivalent to the Patriarch of Constantinople or Rome. We are protestant, catholic, and free.

We will seek companions in Christ where they may be found, and in all things we will seek companionship with Christ who has found us.

As for those who wish to disenfranchise or shun us, “we must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation,” and hold them, as we hold the rest of the Christian churches of the world, in our prayers and with the hope of more gracious times when God will grant us greater, deeper and truer union.